


Irregularities

by spikywriting



Category: The Book of Mormon - Ambiguous Fandom, The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists and Dancers, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Artist Connor, Connor is a mean twink who doesn’t pay his bills, Drinking, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, I think?, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Minor Arnold Cunningham/Nabulungi Hatimbi, Roommates, Slow Burn, Title is very much subject to change, ballet dancer kevin, connor is a flirt and Kevin blushes a lot, kevin is a still an emotionally stunted perfectionist, they are both ex-mormons and they both sort of had missions but not together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-05-05 16:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14622837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikywriting/pseuds/spikywriting
Summary: “You know, they say there’s only two kinds of roommates: those who hate each other and those who want to fuck each other.”It’s a good thing Kevin isn’t drinking anything this time. “I’m pretty you are the only person who as ever said that,” he says, and he hates that he can feel how red face is.Connor shrugs. “Maybe, but it’s still true.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends this is my first fic I’ve posted on here, and i know it’s a bit ambitious but I’ve worked really hard on it and I think it will improve as I keep writing. I hope you guys like it!!

Kevin Price has accepted nearly every drawback to following his dreams and becoming a dancer except for one: he can’t pay rent without a roommate. He’s always hated sharing, and after living alone for almost two years, he has pretty high standards for personal space. I guess technically he lives in a two bedroom apartment so it’s not like he couldn’t have a roommate if he wanted one, but then he would have to give up the other room as his studio/office/library and is that really worth it? Probably, if it meant he could stop having ramen for every meal.

So, I guess you could call it an act of God when Arnold called him on that early Thursday morning. “Hey buddy,” the call begins, as they usually do.

“What’s up,” Kevin says, suppressing a yawn. He puts the phone between his shoulder and his cheek and turns on the coffee maker. 

“Oh, nothing. Just wanted to check in on you,” Arnold answers. For a pathological liar, he’s not very good at it.

Kevin picks up his coffee and walks into his studio. “Arnold, it’s 6 am. What do you need?”

He can practically hear him trying to find a way out of this. “Okay, so I have this friend. I don’t think you’ve met him, but he’s an ex-Mormon too and I think he was even district leader on his mission, I can’t remember where off the top of my head, but—”

“Get to the point.”

“He’s being evicted. In three days.”

Kevin cannot imagine where he could possibly be going with this, but he doesn’t think he’s going to like it. “And that affects me how?” he asks.

“Don’t freak out… I may have told him that he could stay with you.”

Kevin nearly spits coffee all over his mickey mouse pajamas. “Arnold!”

“I’m sorry, I panicked! He can’t stay with me; my apartment is barely big enough for me and Naba. And you did say you needed a roommate,” he says.

“I need a roommate who pays rent! Do you know why people get evicted, Arnold? It’s because they don’t pay rent!” There’s silence on the other end and Kevin immediately feels guilty. He knows how much Arnold hates being talked down to. “I’m sorry. That was harsh. But you can’t keep doing things like this. I know you want to help everyone, but sometimes you have to let people solve their own problems,” he says.

“I know, I’m working on it,” Arnold says, and he sounds like he genuinely means it. “Can he stay with you though? Please? Think of it as a favor to me.”

Kevin pinches his forehead. He can feel a migraine coming on. “Yeah, I guess he can. You gotta give me some time to clean out my studio though.”

He can hear Arnold sigh in relief. “Thank you, I love you, you’re the best best friend in the entire world.”

“Yeah, yeah. So, what’s this guy’s name again?”

”Connor McKinley. You guys are meeting at the Starbucks near the ballet school tomorrow at nine. He’s quite a character so be prepared.”

...

It’s 9:30 am on a Friday and Kevin should be biking to work. Instead, he’s watching anxiously as a red-haired boy who walked in half an hour late orders the most complex drink he has ever seen. His leg bounces nervously and his eyes dart back to the wall clock every few seconds even though he knows he’s going to be late no matter what. His boss probably isn’t even going to care, but the fifteen lulu-lemon clad moms that paid for their daughters’ classes sure will.

Much to Kevin’s annoyance, the boy and his mountain of whip cream and cinnamon finally make their way over to his table five minutes later. He’s wearing ripped jeans and a sweater that looks like it used to belong to somebody’s grandma, but somehow it works. “You must Connor McKinley,” Kevin says, holding out his hand and trying not to sound irritated. Connor does not take it and gives him an odd look.

“And you must be the infamous Kevin Price,” he says, sitting down across from him.

Kevin makes a mental note to ask Arnold what he’s said about him. “That’s me, I guess.” He waits for Connor to, I don’t know, thank him for letting him move into his apartment with a three-day notice?

Instead, with absolutely zero prompting, he says, “You know, they say there’s only two kinds of roommates: those who hate each other and those who want to fuck each other.”

It’s a good thing Kevin isn’t drinking anything this time. “I’m pretty you are the only person who as ever said that,” he says, and he hates that he can feel how red face is.

Connor shrugs. “Maybe, but it’s still true.”

Kevin is suddenly desperate to get this over with. “Okay, well even if we hate each other, rent is due the first week of every month and it’s 4,500 a month so about 2,200 per person—”

“Sorry, no promises on that one. You see, I’m an artist so I make enough money to where I don’t starve to death more than once a month and that’s about it.”

Fantastic. “You are drinking an eight-dollar cup of sugary milk,” Kevin deadpans. 

Connor smiles a mischievous smile. “Oh this?” he says, holding up his cup. It has a phone number written on it. “I didn’t buy this. Let’s just say I know the barista.”

“That’s great, do you also happen to know my landlord? Because I can’t afford to pay for two people to live in a two-bedroom apartment in New York by myself,” he snaps.

“We could always downgrade to a one-bedroom if that makes you more comfortable,” Connor says with the same wicked grin.

“Have you ever had a serious conversation in your life?”

“Nope.” 

Kevin crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. Connor leans forward almost in unison with a look in his eyes like a Rottweiler watching a piece of meat. They’re startlingly blue and Kevin tries his best not to look intimidated. “Why don’t you have a job at a shitty coffee shop like the rest of the self-obsessed art freaks?” he asks.

“Oh, please. You dancers are no better; all of you ever do is work out and wear tight clothes and drink protein shakes and talk about how hard it is to be in ballet. Don’t you work at a gym or something?”

Kevin doesn’t miss how he carefully dodges the question, but he decides it’s probably not worth getting an answer right now. “No, actually, I teach kids’ dance classes at the arts institute. In fact, I’m late for one right now because of you,” he retorts.

Connor snorts. “It’s not my fault you chose to do that to yourself.”

“Yeah but it’ll come back to bite you if I get fired and you suddenly have no one to pay your bills for you,” Kevin grumbles. They met five minutes ago and they’re already bickering like a middle-aged couple in an airport.

He makes a vague gesture with a sweater-pawed hand. “Arnold will do it,” he says.

He’s probably not wrong and it makes Kevin furious. Arnold works for a big publishing company and makes a lot of money editing children’s books. Him and Naba once paid Kevin’s heating bill against his will after he lost his first job in the middle of January. “You’re unbelievable. I’m going to go apologize to a bunch of 5-year-old girls and try and save my job,” he says, making no move to get up. “If you show up at my house before Sunday I’m not letting you in. And you have to move all your stuff yourself.”

“You’re no fun. I was looking forward to living out my fantasy of sitting on a couch as a pretty boy with big muscles carries me up a flight of stairs,” Connor says. He’s watching closely for Kevin’s reaction which just makes Kevin try harder not to have one.

“Does that usually work for you? Telling boys they have big muscles to get what you want?”

The corner of Connor’s mouth quirks up in amusement. “Yes. Unless they’re super straight, which you’re clearly not.”

_Clearly?_

The only thing keeping Kevin from asking what it is about him that makes him appear so obviously not straight is the knowledge that Connor wants him to. “Well… it’s not going to work on me. I’m not carrying any of your stuff,” he says, and the flicker of disappointment in those sharp blue eyes makes it worth it.

Kevin looks at his watch. It’s nearly 10 o’clock, and as mad as he is about it, it would probably be better to just call in sick than show up now. That doesn’t mean he’s spending any more time with Connor “you’re clearly not” McKinley than he has to. “Give me your phone number,” he says.

Connor rolls his eyes, pulls out a sharpie, and starts carefully writing the digits out on Kevin’s hand. “If you call me between 4 am and noon, I will block your number,” he warns, sounding dead serious for the first time all day.

As someone who goes to bed at 10:30 and wakes up at 7, Kevin hopes to God that’s not actually his sleep schedule. “I don’t doubt that you will. See you on Sunday,” he says, getting up and grabbing his bag.

As he’s walking out, he hears Connor mutter, “It’s the hair by the way.” 

…

Every wall in Kevin’s studio looks like it belongs in a different kind of room. One is lined with mirrors for practicing footwork, one is covered in photographs ranging from family pictures from his childhood to selfies with Arnold, one has a desk and an office chair, and the other one is jam packed with precariously stacked books. He’s been told by nearly every person who’s ever been in his studio that this wall is a safety hazard and that someday all the books are going to come crashing down on him. And now he has to figure out a way to move every book on the wall without proving them right.

As if to add yet another element of danger, Kevin doesn’t own a ladder and the next best option is his office chair and even then, he has to stand on a few books to reach the top shelf. At least if he falls and breaks a bone he probably won’t have to live with a roommate for a while. The medical bill might be worth a few more weeks of peace and quiet.

He’s just gotten to the very back corner of the top shelf, where he’s finding dust covered books he didn’t even know existed, when he sees it. The familiar dark blue cover and gold lettering makes him flinch involuntarily and for a split second, he’s worried he might fall. Out of nowhere, he’s hit with a distant memory of putting it up here for the purpose of forgetting it existed like the rest of the top shelf books. 

It was a few months after he moved in, right as he was starting to take steps to dissociate himself from Mormonism. He had just called his mother to let her know that he wouldn’t be coming home for Christmas this year and unsurprisingly, she didn’t react very well. But the thing that really struck a chord for Kevin is that she was using the same language she would use when talking about non-Mormons when he was a kid. She told him that heavenly father didn’t love him and that he was going to hell for denying God. She said that he was no better than a Catholic or an atheist and that he would never be forgiven if he didn’t come home and get help from the Church. After that, Kevin put his copy of the Book of Mormon on the top shelf and he hasn’t picked it up or called his mother since.

He has a sinking feeling that if he picks up the book, something bad is going to happen. He knows it’s irrational, but there’s something about associating that much power with one book for so long that never really leaves you. With shaking hands, he reaches out and slowly picks it up. He holds it gently like it could disintegrate in his hands at any moment and tries not to feel the significance in the worn cover and the creases in the spine. Inside, he knows there are hundreds of passages underlined, circled, highlighted and traced several times over. Kevin tosses it onto the growing pile of books with more force than necessary.

It takes him 4 hours, but he manages to turn his tower of books into a river of books that stretches across the entire room. The tediousness of the work keeps the Book of Mormon out of his head until he gets in bed and finds himself unable to fall asleep. Usually, his strategy for dealing with sleeplessness is working so hard he’s knocked out the second his head hits the pillow, but Kevin has the feeling that that isn’t going to work this time. Besides, the gym would be closed by now and he doesn’t live in the kind of neighborhood where he can go on runs in the middle of the night.

Kevin flips over and puts his pillow over his head in frustration. There is no way he’s being left alone with his thoughts right now. There’s too much he doesn’t want to remember and even more he doesn’t want to believe could happen in the future. He finds himself taking out his laptop and typing Connor McKinley’s name into the search bar. He’s desperate enough for a distraction that he doesn’t even bother coming up with a reason for why he’s doing it.

The first five or six results are sports articles about some baseball player, which tells Kevin that Connor is probably as poor and unknown as he says he is. He’s down to the bottom of the first page before he sees anything mentioning the Connor he’s looking for. It’s an article in The New School Free Press covering an art show for Parsons art students that happened in 2015.

Connor went to Parsons?

Kevin feels a twinge of jealousy. There’s no way he could’ve gotten into a school like that, not when he was seventeen. The idea of studying dance in college hadn’t even entered his head. 

There’s a link attached to Connor’s name in the article. Clicking it fills the page with pictures of huge black and white drawings. Every presumption Kevin made about Connor’s talent based on his attitude and financial situation is shattered by seeing his art. The drawings are mostly portraits with a few still lifes and one abstract sketch of the New York skyline. Every piece is at least 4 feet in length and width and incredibly detailed, but there’s not one line that doesn’t serve a purpose. People say that with sketch art there’s always room for error, but it doesn’t look like Connor allows himself any room.

One portrait of a little boy sitting by the edge of a pool takes Kevin’s breath away. He can tell Connor must’ve taken days if not weeks getting the face just right. The boy’s eyes are clearly green without the drawing having any color and his skin glows in soft late afternoon sunlight. He’s looking outward at the viewer with the beginnings of a smile on his face, like someone just told him something wonderful and he hasn’t had time to process it yet. His lips are barely parted, and one corner of his mouth looks like it’s being tugged towards his ear. Kevin can picture what he would look like a few seconds after the frame.

“Wow,” he breathes. It’s hard to believe something so beautiful could come from someone so cynical and cold. It’s also hard to believe that it didn’t sell to some big museum for thousands of dollars. No one knows better than Kevin how hard it is to make it in the arts, but Connor was the type of artist that has the potential to make it. And that was in college. He can’t even imagine what his work must be like now.

Kevin yawns and turns to look out the window behind his bed. It’s raining and the kind of dark that only exists after midnight. He could spend hours looking at the rest of the drawings in the collection, but he needs to go to bed right now if wants to get in his morning workout. Reluctantly, he shuts his laptop and pulls the covers up to his chin.

He falls asleep without a single thought about his parents or the Book of Mormon.

... 

It’s impossible to say whether it’s the thunder or the sound of his phone ringing that wakes him up first. Before he even registers that it’s too early for his alarm to be going off, he’s swinging an arm out and blindly feeling for the source of the noise. He drags the phone over to his face and cracks one eye open. The screen reads: “Connor McKinley.” 

Kevin lets out an aggravated groan and hits decline. Why is he calling him? They’re not friends, and Kevin thought he made it pretty clear that he’s not helping Connor with anything.

He’s just starting to drift back to sleep when the ringing starts up again. He grumbles some very un-Mormon words and snatches his phone off his nightstand. “You better have a really good reason for this,” he says.

There’s a beat of silence on the other end and then a burst of giggles “What are you wearing?” Connor slurs in a low-pitched tone that Kevin thinks is supposed to sound seductive. Definitely drunk.

Kevin scrubs a hand across his face. “I’m not coming to get you if that’s what this is about,” he says.

“Don’t worry, sleeping beauty—” he pauses to laugh at his own joke. “I’m already here. You just have to come let me in.” Kevin hears someone yell through the phone and from outside his building at the same time and sighs in realization.

The only reason he doesn’t tell Connor to fuck off right then and there is the chattering of his teeth when he speaks and the knowledge that he’s so drunk he probably couldn’t find his way home. “Alright, give me a second,” he says, moving towards the buzzer.

About two minutes after he pushes the button, there’s a burst of loud and erratic knocks on his door. He opens it to find a soaking wet and violently shivering boy in jeans and a thin button-down shirt. His clothes are sticking to him in a way that makes him appear to be made up entirely of sharp angles that could snap at any moment. His skin is slightly grey, and his half-smiling lips are tinged blue at the edges. The only sign that he’s the same person Kevin met that morning is the shock of red hair. He starts to open his mouth to say something, but Kevin cuts him off.

“The bathroom is the first door on the right. Go take a hot shower and I’ll get you some dry clothes and make you some tea. I have cold medicine and cough drops, but if you need something stronger we can get it tomorrow. We’ll talk about this when you don’t look like a walking case of pneumonia.”

Connor has a funny look on his face, almost like he thinks Kevin is trying to trick him. “I like honey in my tea,” he says warily and stumbles past Kevin into the apartment and towards the bathroom.

Now he’s sure that this is the same boy he met this morning because there cannot be more than one person in New York who’s that self-centered. He glares incredulously at his back for a moment then walks off to find him some clothes.

Just as Kevin is stirring the honey into his tea, Connor walks into the kitchen smelling of Kevin’s soap and wearing his Disney pajama pants and an oversized BYU t-shirt that slumps off his collar bone. His cheeks are red from the steam and he still looks just as drunk as he did before. Kevin would never admit it, but it’s actually kind of adorable. “So,” he says, handing him his tea. “Explain.”

Connor takes a drink and flinches at the heat. “They decided to kick me out early. I went home after our date and the door was barred and there was a note on the door saying they’d taken my stuff. Figured I’d go get drunk and find someone to take me home with him,” he says.

“That didn’t work, I’m assuming,” Kevin says.

Connor snorts. “You think I would be here if it did?” He pushes himself up onto the counter and starts swinging his feet like a kid. “No, it didn’t work. Couple of old creeps tried to rope me in, but I’m not that stupid. So I drank until I couldn’t remember where I was and then walked around until I found the address that Arnold told me to write on my hand. It didn’t start raining until after I left.”

“How long were you outside?”

“You ever tried to find a place you’ve never been to at night while drunk? Long enough.”

That’s fair. “You could get sick, you know,” Kevin says.

“I don’t get sick. And I’m pretty sure that’s a myth anyway.”

They’re facing each other, Kevin leaning against fridge and Connor looking down on him from the counter. If he swung his feet an inch farther, he would kick Kevin in the stomach. He seems to be focused on controlling his blinking to avoid looking tired, but the bags under his eyes give it away. “I’m going to go clear the couch off for you before you fall asleep in my kitchen,” Kevin says.

“But I’m not tired,” Connor whines petulantly.

Apparently, he turns into a very rude five year old when he’s drunk.

Kevin moves the heaps of books and papers and miscellaneous crap off his old green couch and finds Connor a blanket. When he walks back into the kitchen, Connor is closely observing his clothes. “I can’t tell which of the things I’m wearing is most embarrassing,” he says. He doesn’t know why that stings, but it does. At this point, he’s indifferent to BYU and he hasn’t cared that much about Disney since he was nineteen, but for some reason he doesn’t want Connor to think his past is embarrassing.

“Okay, time for bed,” says Kevin, repressing the urge to defend his teenage self’s life choices. He holds out his hands to help him off the counter. Of course, Connor doesn’t take them, and instead tries to get down himself, falls, and ends up being caught by Kevin inches from faceplanting onto the tile. He doesn’t look at all fazed and Kevin can’t tell if it’s because he’s drunk or if he genuinely doesn’t feel fear. Neither answer would surprise him.

“Wow, I’m so tired and clumsy. I’m not sure that I can walk to the couch by myself…” Connor says in that ridiculous flirty voice of his.

Kevin has been described on many occasions as the most stubborn person alive, but he gets the feeling that Connor is a close runner up and he’s too tired to be difficult right now. “Oh my god, fine.” He loops one arm under the other boy’s legs, and Connor looks perfectly pleased with himself.

“Did I just hear Kevin Price, perfect ex-Mormon boy, use the lord’s name in vain?” he asks, pulling a face like a scandalized old woman in a movie.

“You said it yourself, it’s ex-Mormon. Those rules don’t apply to me anymore,” he says. Actually, he only recently started swearing and he still can’t bring himself to say some of the worse words out loud, but Connor doesn’t need to know that.

“Maybe I did, but we both know there’s no such thing.”

It’s probably around 4:30 by now, and Kevin’s brain feels mostly like TV static, but the one thought that pierces through the fog is that Connor’s small, sleepy smile looks exactly like the one the boy in his drawing was wearing. It’s an odd expression on a face that seems to be made for condescending sneers, and if Kevin’s mouth twitches a little at the sight it’s definitely not because it makes his chest feel strange and warm like a cup of coffee on a cold day.

In a subconscious effort to physically escape that thought, he drops Connor unceremoniously on the couch, sending a cloud of dust up into the air. “Such a romantic,” Connor deadpans. The smile has been replaced by the drunk equivalent of a scowl.

“If you wanted romance you shouldn’t have showed up at my apartment soaking wet while I was asleep,” Kevin retorts.

“Sounds pretty hot to me.”

“A regular apology would be fine, thanks.”

“I don’t do anything the regular way.”

“Yeah, no shit,” he says, but there’s no venom behind it. Truth be told, Kevin could use some irregularity. He once told Arnold during a drunken rant that he felt like he was born with a gold medal around his neck and he’s spent his entire life waiting for someone to knock him off his podium. He doesn’t remember saying it, but Arnold brought it up a few months ago while complaining to Kevin about how pretentious he was.

He hasn’t thought about that for a while, but the memory resurfaces as he watches a red headed boy fall asleep on his couch. The air feels like uncharted territory and for once, that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> domestic grocery shopping and someone gets the flu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y’all sorry this is so late I’ve been really busy with school. I won’t have access to my laptop for a month starting June 11 so I won’t be able to write during that time but I’m going to try to post a chapter before then. Other than that I will probably try and update about every two weeks. also due to a formatting error there are probably typos in this chapter so sorry about that. hope you enjoy it anyway!!

Somehow it never occurred to Kevin that having twice as many people living in his apartment means buying twice as much food twice as often. Really, it's more like three, because Kevin's career depends on him maintaining muscle mass and Connor eats like a horse despite the fact that he spends most of his time watching reality TV on the couch. 

They make it four days before they have to buy groceries. The only things in the pantry are protein powder and ramen, and while Kevin could probably live on that, his roommate definitely can’t. "I’m going out,” he says, pulling on a worn leather jacket he bought as a present to himself after he graduated. 

Connor stretches like cat from his position upside down on the couch. "I’ll go.” 

Kevin raises an eyebrow. "Not to a party. It’s grocery shopping

"I know.”

“For food. Just the basics, we cant afford anything fancy.” 

“I know.”

Kevin was actually looking forward to some alone time, but he’s not going to deny Connor the right to get some exercise. "Alright, well put on a jacket, it's cold out. I know you don’t get sick, but I’m not listening to you whine.” 

"Okay, mom,” he grumbles, but grabs a hoodie anyway. 

They walk all the way to the grocery store in silence, side by side, but far enough apart that theres no chance they could accidentally touch. Anyone passing by would probably think they had a fight and are walking together out of necessity, but no. They’re just two roommates who perpetually dont like each other and decided to go grocery shopping together for some unearthly reason. 

As soon as they're inside the store, Connor makes a beeline for an aisle that should be called Everything That Will Give You Diabetes in One Place. "Hey, they're having a sale on double stuff Oreos,” he says, grabbing four boxes and dumping them into the cart.

"I’m not buying you that,” Kevin says flatly. He anticipated this happening. 

"Well, good thing I didn't ask you to then,” Connor responds with the same tone, standing on tip toes to reach a bag of Doritos on the top shelf. It makes his shirt ride up a little bit, and Kevin silently wonders how he's so skinny if this is what he eats all the time 

“You don't have any money.”

Connor turns the corner into a different aisle and Kevin follows him. "Thats a bold assumption,” Connor says, handing him a box of cereal with more sugar than Kevin’s had in the last month 

"You just got evicted from your apartment and now you're living in mine for free and you're telling me you have secret money?” 

“I have Oreo money not rent money.” In response to Kevins bewildered expression, he shrugs and says, “Odd jobs.”

Kevin ends up leaving Connor to his own devices and getting his own cart which he fills up with his usual mix of coffee, high-protein foods, and whatever fruit and vegetables are the cheapest. Today, it's oranges and frozen peas, neither of which Kevin is particularly fond of. He knows it's useless, but he cant stop himself from walking over to the strawberries and going through the boxes to figure out which one he would buy if he could afford it. He used used to love strawberries. His mom would buy huge containers of them in the summer and he and his siblings would sit outside on the porch and eat the whole thing. He feels a sharp pain in his chest at the memory and suddenly wishes he hadn’t gone grocery shopping at all. "You could just get them anyway. Let loose a little for once in your life,” says a voice behind him. 

He drops the container he’s holding suddenly, like it might burn him. "They’re too much. If I start giving myself special treats now, I’ll do it next time too, and the next time and I won’t be able to stop. I’ll be right back where I started and nothing I've done to get here will matter anymore.” He didn't mean to say all of that and he doesn’t even know what most of it means, but Kevin has found that sometimes his brain makes decisions without ever consulting him. 

He turns around to find Connor, looking unimpressed and with a cart comically full of junk food. “You're pathetic, you know that? It’s strawberries, not a Maserati. I promise your precious job as a dancing babysitter will remain intact if you indulge in some overpriced fruit.” 

“Easy for you to say. You dont have any responsibilities,” Kevin says bitterly. Something unfamiliar flashes across Connors face, but it's so brief Kevin can’t be sure he didnt imagine it. As soon as Connor turns away, he grabs the strawberries and tells himself he decided to do it on his own. 

Much to their dismay, they both end up in the same checkout lane. The cashier is giving pointed dirty looks at Connor while he just as pointedly pretends like he doesn’t notice them. It takes Kevin a full minute to realize it's because of his clothes. He’s wearing black basketball shorts that go to below his knees, a stained New York Ballet sweatshirt, and lime green flip flops. He looks ridiculous and it only took Kevin this long to notice because they’re his clothes. Not that he would ever wear them out in _public_. He's far too vain for that. 

The woman finishes ringing both of them up, and they walk out with Kevin carrying all of his own groceries and half of Connor’s, as if he didnt call him pathetic in front of an entire store of people less than five minutes ago. “Did you see the way she was looking at you? I think she’d have hated you less if you'd walked in naked,” Kevin says as soon as they’re out of earshot.

“Oh Kevin, I would never show up to a public place naked. I wouldn’t want every man in the area to have an identity crisis.” 

As usual, Kevin deliberately doesn’t react. "Aren’t you embarrassed to be seen in that though? Arnold made it sound like you were some sort of fashion expert.” 

"If I have to wear your tacky, oversized, man ballerina clothes, it's better to look like I’ve given up than like I’m trying and failing to have a fashion sense,” Connor says seriously.

Kevin laughs harder than he has in a long time

...

Until he left for college, Kevin never got sick. His parents believed that disease was a sign of sin, so they never got him or any of his siblings vaccinated. His brother got sick all the time, and was reprimanded for it extensively, but Kevin was praised for his impeccable health. The only exception was when he got mono when he was fifteen. He was so upset he went to school anyway until the nurse sent him home after he collapsed in the hallway between classes. 

His lack of shots as a child left him with an extreme fear of needles, so he still doesn’t get flu shots and as a result, gets the flu almost every year. He’s convinced he fought it off as a teenager by sheer force of will because based on recent years, his immune system is practically nonexistent. 

So needless to say, he knows exactly what's going on when he wakes up a few weeks after the grocery shopping trip feeling like there’s broken glass in his throat and pins and needles covering his entire body. Well, he doesnt _wake_ up as much as he is _woken_ up by the unmistakable sound of tap shoes on hard wood. "Connor, what are you doing?” he groans. He opens one eye and sees a hazy outline of someone leaning against the doorframe. 

"I got bored so I went through the closet in my room. I didn't know you were a tap dancer, Kevin,” Connor says, tapping extra loud on the last word. It makes Kevin’s headache flare up and he flinches involuntarily. 

“What time is it?” he mumbles with his pillow over his head. 

There’s a beat of silence as Connor checks his phone. “Almost noon. Are you dying or something?” 

Kevin feels a burst of conditioned panic at the idea of sleeping five hours past his scheduled wake up time, but it subsides as he remembers that he probably has the flu. “No, but I think I’m getting sick.”

“Aw does poor little Kevin need someone to make him soup and rub his back and turn on his favorite cartoons?” Connor croons. 

Kevin tries to throw a pillow at him, but he’s pretty sure it misses because his eyes are closed and right now, Connor is five times faster and stronger than he is. “I have to pick up costumes for my students and drop them off at the studio, call about getting a new lighting system for the auditorum, bring Nabalungi some shoes she left here, and figure out a venue for Arnold's birthday party and I dont think I could walk ten feet without throwing up or collapsing,” he says, more to himself that anyone else. 

“I mean, I can see what I have going on,” Connor says. He’s tapping a slow rhythmic beat with just the front part of the shoes. 

Kevin drags his head out from underneath the pillow to stare at him. “What?” 

"I can probably do most of that stuff. Phone calls aren't really my thing, but other that, I guess I’ll do it.” He’s examining his nails for dirt and scratches that aren’t there and refusing to meet Kevin’s eye. 

Kevin smiles amusedly. “Well, since you're feeling so generous, why don't you get me some cough drops and tissues on your way back. Also, a glass of ice water right now would be great.” 

Connor rolls his eyes. "God, sick people are such a pain,” he says, but he gets it for him anyway. "I’ll be back around two. You have to text me directions to your studio and if your boss tries to talk to me I’m walking out.” Kevin tries to laugh, but it turns into a cough. He gives Connor a mocking salute and gets a withering look in response.

Kevin listens to the sounds of Connor leaving the apartment with his eyes closed and his head under his comforter. He can feel the air getting thinner and hotter as he stays there for longer. It’s stifling, but the outside is too cold and Kevin has found that it's easier to sleep overheated than shivering. 

His sheets are white and his blankets are blue, but the air around him looks red and murky. Blood rushes through his ears, deafening him, and making his face feel much hotter than it was before. His hands and lungs and eyelids feel heavy and some part of his brain won’t stop telling him he’s being held underwater. Distantly, he wonders how high his fever is. 

...

The next coherent thought Kevin has is that his blankets are gone and his hands are sweaty. He knows he had a nightmare, but the details are all unclear and the more he thinks about it, the more he can’t remember why it was scary in the first place. He might still be in the nightmare. Can you sweat in a nightmare? Maybe, but this doesn’t feel like nightmare sweat. Also, he’s aware of his eyes in a way he doesn’t think is possible when you're asleep. He tries to open them but blinding orange light forces them shut. "Shit,” he mutters, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

"Finally awake, are we?” an alarmingly close voice says to him. Kevins whole body freezes up and his eyes squint open despite the light. There is a boy sitting on his bed with a sketchpad in his lap and a pencil behind his ear. The boy looks familiar, but it takes Kevin a second to place why and even then, he doesn't completely trust his eyes or his memory. 

"What are you drawing?” he asks hoarsely. 

He wishes he hadn’t said it because it makes Connor shut his sketchpad right before Kevin gets a glimpse of the page. "It’s nothing. Just practice,” he says. Kevin’s about to ask what he's practicing, but Connor cuts him off by saying, "Did you know you talk in your sleep? I've never heard anyone babble incoherently for that long which, considering some of the guys I’ve dated, is really saying something.” 

Kevin shrugs. “I mean, usually when I get sick I’m alone so I dont have anyone to tell me if I’ve been sleep talking. I think my fever was higher than usual this time though, so it might be because of that.” 

Connor looks at him with his brows furrowed for a moment before getting up and walking out of the room. He comes back with a thermometer and a bottle of ibuprofen. “Open up,” he says, putting the thermometer in Kevin’s mouth. Kevin feels like a child, but it's not an entirely unpleasant feeling. He hasn’t has anyone take care of him since he was a kid, and he finds he kind of likes being babied. The thermometer beeps and if Kevin crosses his eyes he can read the number 104.3. "Jesus. you're burning up. Drink some water and take three of these,” Connor says, handing him the ibuprofen. He sounds _concerned_ and its honestly kind of unsettling. 

"Nice to know I have a live-in nurse now,” Kevin teases. 

Predictably, Connor rolls his eyes. "Shut up, I’m just trying to keep my source of rent-free living alive. If you die, I might have to get a sugar daddy and that would be such a pain.” Kevin can’t tell if he's joking or not, but he laughs regardless. 

This seems like a natural time for Connor to tell Kevin he’s on his own now and leave. It’s dark out, Kevin has just noticed, and it's a Saturday night. On weekends, Connor usually goes out somewhere with people Kevin has never met and comes back some time early in the morning, drunk and disheveled. 

Apparently, tonight is an exception because he just flops back down on Kevin’s bed and starts twirling the pencil that was behind his ear. "So what was it for you? What caused the big breakup between you and your perfect eternal life as a super-Mormon? From what Arnold says, he just never really got into it, but something must’ve happened to you. Was it the gay thing or did that come later?” 

Kevin gets the sinking feeling these questions might be prompted by whatever he was saying during his nightmare. He’s too sick and exhausted to be annoyed by them, but not quite sick enough not to be embarrassed by the last one. "It wasn’t really something that happened as much as it was all the things that didn’t. I dont know what Arnold has told you, but our mission wasnt very... successful. We didnt baptize anyone.” It's been two years and saying it still makes his stomach lurch. "My district leader was a nervous wreck who didnt know what he was doing, and the village people didn't want anything to do with us. From an objective point of view, I can understand why. Most of them were dying of AIDS and they were constantly being terrorized by warlords from neighboring villages. At the time, though, it was so frustrating because my whole life I’d been told that Mormonism could change someone’s life and someday I was going to get to go out and be a part of that change. Not once had I considered the possibility that once I was finally given the chance, nobody would want my help. I was forced to confront the idea that maybe I only believed the Book of Mormon was life changing for so long because nothing had ever happened in my life that needed changing. After that, my faith started to collapse and I never really believed in any of it.” He’s out of breath, partly from the sickness and partly from the physical stress it puts on him to recount that memory. 

Connor’s focusing hard on twirling his pencil, jaw working and eyes glowing orange in the lamp light. "My mission was in San Francisco," he says. Kevin breathes a sigh of relief at the topic change. "I was district leader, believe it or not. I was pretty good too until they kicked me out.” Connor pauses, presumably waiting for Kevin to ask him why he got kicked out. Usually, Kevin wouldn’t humor him, but this time he’s too morbidly curious not to.

“What happened?” he asks tentatively. Connor’s knuckles are white from gripping the pencil so hard. He’s not twirling it anymore, just staring it down with frightening intensity. 

“My group was known for being 'misguided' as they put it. I don’t know how any of them got put in the same district, but most of them knew each other and none of them had any intention of following the rules or devoting themselves to their mission. I’m half convinced their families bribed the church to keep them from getting in trouble. Anyway, they all hated me because I was notoriously strict and I didn't tolerate any of their slacking off. I filed report after report of unmanageable behavior in my district, and every report was either lost in the mail or deemed 'not pressing enough for further review.’ Eventually, the mission president sent someone down just to shut me up and she ended up relocating two missionaries. After that, the others were set on getting me removed from my position as district leader, but the problem was, I had never done anything wrong. They tried for months to find even the smallest infraction, going through my things and watching me like a hawk. Once they realized I wasn't going to slip up, they lied. One day two of them told me they wanted to do the grocery shopping for that week, and being the dumbass optimist that I was, I thought they were finally making progress. Turns out they were just looking for a way to account for the time they spent reporting me to the mission president for homosexual activity.” 

Kevin thinks he might throw up. "That’s grounds for excommunication,” he whispers 

“Yeah.” Connors voice is quivering and his face is nearly as red as Kevin’s. "It is.” They’re both silent for a moment as they let the weight of what they said settle into the air. Uncomfortable shared secrets take up every inch of space in the apartment and it feels like there’s not room for both of them here. 

"Connor, that's horrible. I thought I had it bad, but I can't even imagine having to go through that.” 

Connor shrugs nonchalantly. "It's fine,” he says in a way that indicates that it's anything but fine. "I dont even know why I told you any of that.” He seems almost nervous and it makes Kevin feel equally confused and worried. It's suddenly vital to him that Connor is okay, even for just this moment. 

“No, it's not fine,” Kevin says somewhat forcefully. He cautiously reaches out and grabs Connor’s hand. It makes the other boy flinch and Kevin’s heart breaks just a little bit. "I’m really sorry about what happened to you. You say you’re fine, but I don’t think you are. I know you hate me and I’m not crazy about you either, but you shouldn’t have to deal with this alone.” 

Connor turns to look at him for the first time since he woke up, his expression unreadable. "I don’t hate you, Kevin," he says quietly. Of all the things Kevin was prepared for him to say, that was not one of them. Connor stands up abruptly and moves to stand by the door. “You should get some sleep. My mom used to tell me the best cure for the flu is rest.” 

“I thought you didn't get the flu,” Kevin says. 

Connor smiles in his usual way, one corner of his mouth turned up and without any particular emotion. “I don’t.” He opens the door and starts to walk out of the room. “Night, Kevin,” he says as the door closes behind him. 

"Good night,” Kevin says too quietly for anyone to hear but himself. He turns off his lamp and lies flat on his back, staring up at the dark expanse of his ceiling. He doesn’t want to go to sleep. He doesn’t want to dream anymore and he doesn't want to say anything else he doesn't consciously decide to say. He wants to know why Connor said the things he said. He wants to know how much Connor’s mission hurt him and most of all, he wants to know why he even cares.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin and Connor Remember They Have Dreams and Aspirations ft. a lot of accidental musical references

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this turned out way longer than I was planning and i wrote it in half the time it usually takes me so take what you want from that but i’m actually pretty proud of this chapter!! also just a reminder that there will not be another chapter for a minimum of 4 weeks because I will be without access to my laptop until July 9th. 
> 
> A PSA for this chapter: i am not a ballet dancer and this fic takes a lot of artistic license with how hard it is to make it in ballet so if you’re a dancer, please don’t be offended by any inaccuracies, I did my best

Things are different after that. Not different in the way that either of them stops being horribly mean to each other but there are exceptions now. There are times when both of them agree to stop the nagging and the insults until there’s nothing more painful in their lives than each other. It’s never a matter of asking, they’re both far too proud to admit weakness, especially to each other, but they have a set of unwritten rules. If Connor comes back from a night out slamming doors and talking to himself, Kevin doesn’t comment on how he smells like vodka or tell him he’s being an annoyance to the neighbors. Likewise, if Kevin comes home from work with sagging limbs and tired eyes, Connor doesn’t make lewd remarks about his tight ballet clothes the way he does nearly every other day.

Recently, Connor has been having to hold his tongue for Kevin’s sake more and more. Kevin’s boss, Laura, has been changing his schedule to account for all the classes being missed by teachers out with the flu. Usually, he teaches the youngest students; the five and six-year-olds who are mostly just taking the classes because their moms signed them up, but a few days after he gets back from his sick days, Laura starts giving him the older students as well as his regular classes. Not only that, but she also leaves the studio right after giving him his new assignments, forcing him to do all of the rescheduling and calling of parents that would usually be her job. Not to mention the fact that he has to plan classes for double the students, some of which he has never met, and figure out how to teach advanced ballet to resentful teenagers that all think they’re going to end up on Broadway. He can barely catch his breath between classes so all of that has to wait until he gets home. He rarely gets to sleep before one in the morning, and he’s always up at 6:30 to run or go to the gym.

He’s fine though. He’s fine, and he doesn’t need anyone’s help because he is Kevin Price and he can do anything he sets his mind to. This becomes a mantra for him as he writes programs at his desk and rides home on the subway and runs like something’s chasing him down side streets and alleyways with his heart pounding in his ears.

The morning after a particularly sleepless night, Kevin arrives at work early. It’s a Saturday, the busiest day of the week without all the extra classes, and he needs time to set up. He told himself he was going to skip working out and sleep late today because God knows he could use the extra energy, but Kevin has lived most of his life governed by a series of rigid schedules so he’s up at 6:30 and at work by 7:15 anyway.

He likes being the first person in the studio. No one he works with has ever been early to anything in their lives so he never has to worry about anyone else interrupting his routine or judging him for the music he plays over the speakers. Before 9:30, the space is his. When Laura is there, she makes sure to remind all of the dance instructors, in subtle ways, that this is her studio and they work for her. But as the sun rises over what will soon be a windy October day, Laura is not there and Kevin has hours to sit and daydream about being a real ballet dancer with a real company and real studio where he dances for himself, not for Laura and not for a bunch of overprivileged, Manhattan-raised children.

Not that he doesn’t love the kids, he does. Sure, he’s a little bit jealous of the fact that their parents are rich enough and normal enough to buy them dance lessons, but he really does love them. His favorite student is a little girl named Lila who loves dancing almost as much as Kevin does. She also thinks he is the best dancer in the entire world and tells him all the time. Kevin would be lying if he said it didn’t boost his ego a little bit, but it also makes him sad because if she’s right and he really is a great dancer, he’s going to end up in a company and he won’t get to see Lila or any of the other kids anymore. Obviously, when and if the opportunity arises, that’s not going to keep him from auditioning, but his last day as a teacher will be bittersweet.

Kevin fantasizes about this last day, and then about his audition, then his first performance in his new company while laying down on the cold hardwood floor of one of the practice rooms with his 80s pop playlist blasting throughout the studio. He’s so deep in a haze of Michael Jackson and egotistical thoughts about being applauded by thousands of people as a principal dancer that he doesn’t even notice that there’s somebody else in the studio.

“Price! What are you doing in there?” a loud, nasally voice yells over the music. Kevin scrambles for his phone to pause the song.

“Sorry, I just got here early to set up and had some extra time,” he says apologetically.

Laura waves at him dismissively, reestablishing the well-known fact that she doesn’t care one bit about anything he has to say to her. “Well, I hope you enjoyed it because you’re not getting any more,” she says. “We’re having guests.” Kevin waits for her to elaborate, but she just looks back at him expectantly, like he should already know what’s going on. “So get moving. We have to clean.”

The studio is already perfectly clean, but there’s no use in pointing that out. Laura is the type of woman who thinks that absolutely everything is preventable and the way to prevent it is never what you think it is. She tells all of the instructors at least once a week that she lost her spot in the Paris Opera Ballet because she wore American makeup instead of French. It’s probably a coping mechanism to deal with the fact that she wasn’t good enough to get in so nobody calls her on it, but it can be frustrating when she applies that way of thinking to other aspects of her job.

Kevin doesn’t know what she’s preventing by deep cleaning the entire studio, but it has to be big if she got here an hour early for it. She puts him in charge of mopping the practice rooms and he only complains a little bit about slippery floors during classes before he does it. It’s actually not that bad because it gives him time to theorize about who the mystery guests are.

By the time he’s finished and the studio is close to opening, he’s decided the most exciting thing would be sponsors looking to expand the studio and the least exciting would be people sent from the Fine Arts Board to make sure Laura and the instructors are doing their jobs the right way.

When the guests finally arrive around ten, Kevin knows immediately they’re from the former end of the scale. He’s teaching a class, but he can see them come in out of the corner of his eye, and then terrifyingly, walk right into his practice room. It’s a man and a woman, both of whom are dressed to the nines and have importance radiating off of them. The woman looks familiar in the same way an actor from a movie you saw three years ago does and the man carries himself in a way that says he assumes you already know who he is. They take a seat in two folding chairs in the corner and train their scrutinizing stares on Kevin. 

He gulps involuntarily. He’s not known for working well under pressure and if this is some kind of evaluation, he stands a chance of failing it. From the looks on his students’ faces, they feel the same way and he feels a surge of irritation at Laura for not telling him about this beforehand so he could prepare them. The nervous energy in the room is palpable.

“Okay, let’s partner up for barre exercises. First, second, and third position, and if you finish that, work on pliés until I call time,” Kevin says. Many of the students audibly sigh in relief and go off to find a friend to whisper about the scary people in the corner with.

Kevin’s about to go fidget with his water bottle and try to reorganize his thoughts in peace when he feels a tug on his sleeve. “Mr. Kevin?” a small voice says from several feet below him. “I don’t have a partner. I don’t think the other kids want to practice with me.”

He recognizes it as a girl named Ruby from the quietness of the voice alone. She’s new and very shy and she goes out of her way to avoid the other students, but she seems to really like dancing so he never bothers her about it.

He crouches down next to her and sees that there are tears in her eyes. “Sure they do, Ruby,” he says quiet enough that nobody else can hear him. “They just didn’t want to be left alone so they picked someone close to them and you stand at the back of the room. I’m sure they all wish they could be partners with you, but you’re so quiet they probably thought you didn’t want to be partners with them.” If it was anyone else saying it, it might come off as harsh, but Kevin has the kind of voice that could make anything sound comforting. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you join a pair and you can have a group of three. Who did you want to be partners with?”

Ruby has her eyes trained on the floor, sniffling quietly. “Lila. She’s the best dancer in the class,” she says, trying so hard not to cry her voice changes pitch on every word.

Lila has partnered up with the only boy in the class, Charlie, and is telling him some long and probably made up story complete with wild gesticulations. She starts halfway doing her exercises when she sees Kevin watching her. “I think Lila is a perfect choice. Why don’t you go over and talk to her? I’m sure she and Charlie would love to be partners with you,” he says. Ruby looks doubtful, but Kevin gives her a big smile and eventually, she gives a small one back. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

She slowly shuffles over to Lila and Charlie, both of whom immediately engulf her into the conversation and stop pretending to critique each other’s pliés. It’s not long before Ruby is laughing along with them, and watching her come out of her shell, Kevin feels that familiar pang of premature nostalgia for this job. He brushes it away before it sinks in too deep and makes him look like a bad teacher in front of the scary rich people.

“Alright, let’s do Sugar Plum Fairy one more time and then you’re all free to go,” he says.

They run through the dance, Ruby and Lila whispering and giggling the whole time, and then all the girls and Charlie trickle out of the room. Kevin sees that they all get to their parents or drivers and walks a few of them to other classes in the next building over. The scary rich people seem annoyed by the process and it gives Kevin a little bit of satisfaction to know that he’s inconveniencing them.

“What can I do for you?” he says, closing the door to the studio behind him.

The woman is nearly as tall as Kevin and built like an athlete, but her air of importance makes her seem much taller. “My name is Veronica Richards and this is my coworker, Robert Birch. We’re talent scouts from the New York City Ballet, and we’d like to talk to you about auditioning for the Company.”

Kevin stands slack-jawed and speechless for no less than thirty seconds. He keeps waiting to wake up in his bed like he has the million other times he’s had this dream, or for Laura to burst in and tell him this is all a mean practical joke. Veronica looks more and more like she’s sucking on a lemon with each passing second, but Kevin can’t get anything to come out of his mouth. “Why?” he finally gets out. “Why did you pick me?”

Victoria’s frown lines deepen even further and Robert’s brows furrow in disapproval. “Mr. Price, do you not accept the offer? You understand that this is a very prestigious company and you will most definitely not get this opportunity again,” Veronica says.

“No! No, I accept. I absolutely accept, and I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity,” he stammers. His past self is kicking him right now. He finally gets the audition of his dreams and he responds by almost rejecting it and then turning into a flustered mess in front of two important people from the company. Still, he has to know. “But with all due respect ma’am, why did you pick me?”

That phrasing seems to soften her up a little bit. “Well, Mr. Price, you are obviously a very good dancer. We reached out to your employer, Ms. Harris, quite a while ago to see if she had any instructors that had the talent and ambition for our company, and she recommended you. We received a copy of your resumé and videos of your past performances as well as strong recommendations from your professors at Brigham Young University. Ms. Harris also collected responses from parents here at the studio assuring us of your competence as an instructor. The board wanted to alert you of our coming to watch you teach beforehand, but Ms. Harris insisted it must remain a secret. I must say, whatever intuition she had must’ve been correct because you were outstanding. You seem to have a knack for dealing with children, Mr. Price.”

He knows she’s referring to the thing with Ruby, and while he can’t imagine why that would make him a candidate for the most prestigious ballet company in the country, he silently thanks Laura for inviting them to come today. Veronica hesitates for a moment before saying, “You know, they’re doing Swan Lake this spring at Lincoln Center. I think you could be a valuable addition to the performance.”

Kevin is beaming. “Thank you, ma’am, I do love my job, and I would be honored to audition for your company,” he says, and he can hear the Mormon missionary coming out from the depths of his personality. In a way, this is his second mission. It’s what he’s worked for ever since coming back from Uganda, and if he’s lucky, this time he really will do something incredible.

…

The talent scouts took up a lot of the time Kevin would usually use for planning so he doesn’t get home until much later than usual. “Hello!” he calls upon entering the apartment. There’s no reason to yell because the apartment is all of 400 square feet, but it irritates Connor so he does it when he’s in a good mood.

Connor isn’t in the main room, which is strange for him. Kevin usually finds him lounging at an odd angle on the couch with a book in his hand or sketching with some old movie playing in the background. He really only spends time in his bedroom when Kevin is being too “naggy” as he puts it. Kevin knocks on the door to the bedroom and gets a hostile, “What?” in response. He can’t tell if it’s just Connor being Connor or if he’s actually upset about something. Either way, he’s not sure he wants to get involved, but he opens the door anyway.

Connor is sitting cross-legged on his bed, which is just a mattress on the floor, with a big piece of expensive looking paper spread out in front of him. He has his pencil in his mouth and there are about a dozen other drawing utensils in a neat row next to the paper. His hair is sticking up at odd angles like he’s been running his fingers through it and there’s a manic glint in his eyes that Kevin’s never seen before. “Drawing, huh?” Kevin says. Connor takes his pencil out of his mouth briefly and then immediately puts it back in.

“No, actually, I’m just sitting here staring at this paper and waiting for something to come along that’s worthy of being drawn,” he says, talking through the pencil. Recently, Kevin has realized that nearly everything Connor says can be categorized as flirting, weird cryptic remarks like that one, or mean but accurate insults. Plus the occasional deeply personal story about a traumatic experience in the Mormon church.

“You could go Central Park or something and draw people you see there,” Kevin suggests, sitting down across from him on the floor.

Connor gives him a sharp look like he’d just been threatened. “How did you know I liked to draw people?”

Oh shit. “Uh, you told me,” Kevin says, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No.”

“Fine, maybe I just assumed that you did because a lot of artists like to draw people. Why does everything have to be such a big deal with you?” Kevin snaps defensively. He can tell Connor doesn’t believe him, but he also seems to realize he’s not getting another answer out of Kevin.

“The people in Central Park wouldn’t work anyway,” Connor says with a hesitant edge to his voice. “I like to draw people I know.”

Kevin remembers the careful, deliberate face of the boy by the pool and wonders how he didn’t see it before. It’s nothing like the detached, purely functional portraits Kevin has seen in museums. Anything that lifelike had to be constructed by someone who’s spent hours and hours memorizing everything about the subject down to the smallest quirks and mannerisms. “Why don’t you draw one of your friends?” Kevin says.

Connor looks at him like he’s just suggested moving to Antarctica. “You mean the people I go out with?” Kevin shrugs and nods at the same time and Connor laughs a short, bitter laugh. “No, not them.” He rakes his fingers through his hair and leaves them knotted in the back of his head. “I don’t have any goddamn inspiration and it’s going to kill my talent,” he says, still holding the pencil in his mouth. “I could draw other things, but they wouldn’t be good enough, and right now, I just want to sell something. I promise you nobody is going to buy a drawing of someone I saw in Central Park or any of the airheaded party drunks I hang out with.”

The juxtaposition of their two careers strikes Kevin suddenly and forcefully. They’re both young, talented, and (somewhat) driven, but they could not be at more different places in terms of success. Kevin just got what could be his big break and Connor is sitting on the floor, frustrated and losing hope, without even a source of inspiration let alone anything to sell. Kevin makes the decision right then and there not to tell him about the audition offer.

“You could draw me,” Kevin suggests, regretting it before it even comes out of his mouth. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if it didn’t come with the implication that Connor knows Kevin well and also likes him and cares about him enough to draw him the same way he drew everyone else in the collection from the art show article. Those portraits were filled to the brim with emotion and dedication and Kevin cringes at what he’s suggesting.

Connor looks like deer in headlights; like a kid who’s just been caught sneaking out. He’s obviously having the same train of thought as Kevin and for a long time, neither of them knows what to say. Kevin can see the moment he snaps back into his careless, catty attitude as a way out. “Kevin, I don’t know how to break this to you, but just because you have good hair doesn’t mean people want your face hanging in their homes,” he says, finally taking out the badly chewed pencil and putting it with the rest of the pens.

Kevin sighs and shakes his head slightly. “I think it depends on who you’re selling to.”

He feels happy and exhausted and embarrassed and slightly guilty for reasons he can’t quite place. As he brushes his teeth, already half asleep, he thinks to himself, _I just lied to my mission companion_. The thought startles him into full alertness and he stares at himself in the mirror like he’s seeing a ghost. Since when does he think of Connor as his mission companion? And what did he lie to him about? Sure, he didn’t tell him right away about the audition, but that’s not lying. Especially if it’s for his own good. He always thought Mormons should have an exception to the no lying rule if the lie protects someone’s feelings. Even if he did lie to him, why does that still bother him? He’s told plenty of lies since leaving the church and he very rarely thinks about them for more than a few seconds.

There’s toothpaste dribbling down his chin and he’s paler than he was when he came in the bathroom. It’s not that he’s scared, just… unsettled. To calm himself, he thinks about what he’ll perform for his audition as he finishes the rest of his nightly routine, which ends with knocking twice on Connor’s door and saying, “Don’t stay up too late, it’s a school night” to which Connor responds, “Fuck off.” This has become their standard goodnight Sunday through Thursday.

As he gets into bed, he whispers to himself, “New York Ballet Principal Dancer, Kevin Price.”

…

In the days before the audition, he is an absolute wreck. There are few times in his life that Kevin hasn’t been able to deal with a situation calmly and without asking for help but this is one of those times. He calls Nabalungi the night before at eleven o’clock and asks her to come over and help him with his performance. He can’t ask Connor because it’s still sort of a secret and he’s already suspicious enough about being kicked out of his room so Kevin can use the mirrors for a random late-night practice session. He’s also having an extremely loud Forensic Files marathon and Kevin needs an outside force to make him be quiet.

Nabalungi gets there around 11:30, immediately yells at Connor to turn down the TV (he does) and walks into his bedroom to find Kevin sitting with his head in his hands on the floor. “Help me,” he mumbles pitifully through his fingers.

“Is it bad that I find this sort of funny?” Nabalungi says. Kevin gives her a look. “Sorry, it’s just… you lived in Uganda for two years, where there are ants that can eat you from the inside out and you’re going to let a big audition be your downfall?”

She has a point. “It’s not my downfall, I’m just nervous. Imagining you have an interview for your dream job tomorrow, wouldn’t you be nervous too?”

Naba shrugs. She already has her dream job, working as an advocate for illegal immigrants at a crisis center, so that might not have been the best analogy use on her. “I guess. What did you want my help with exactly?”

He’s now pacing around the small room and wringing his hands anxiously. “I want you to watch me do my audition piece and tell me if anything seems off or if you think it’s missing something. Start the music over if I mess up,” he says, handing her his phone and the speaker it’s hooked up to.

He runs through the performance three times before he gets the steps all right, Nabalungi doing nothing but hit rewind when he makes a mistake. Her silence is unnerving and Kevin can’t help but feel like she’s judging him. “Well?” he says breathlessly as the music fades out and he comes out of his final pose.

Nabalungi looks unimpressed and it makes his heart sink. “Honey, I get that you’re nervous, but you have got to find a way to make it less obvious. Both of your errors were simple moves that you would have learned in your first week of training, and even in your last run through, you were practically shaking. Also, you look constipated. Maybe try and dig out that blindingly fake missionary smile of yours for tomorrow.”

Kevin really wishes his mission would stop coming up in relation to this audition. “Alright, play it again,” he says, plastering on a huge grin.

They go through it over and over until Kevin loses count and it becomes more muscle memory than anything. At some point, the dramatic music and deep voices coming from the living room stop and Connor comes in to watch. Nabalungi gives Kevin a questioning look, but he doesn’t want to break his rhythm to tell him to leave so he gets to stay.

The two of them watch Kevin, sitting cross-legged on the floor with Connor’s head on Naba’s shoulder until he ends with his arms above his head for the last time, panting and smiling for real. They’re both smiling back at him and for the first time all day, Kevin thinks he can actually pull this off.

….

The next morning, Kevin wakes up an hour before his alarm, sweating and gripping the sheets. He was having an awful dream that the Uganda mission president and his parents were the judges for his audition so he’s actually grateful for the interruption.

He puts a five-hour energy in his protein shake just to see what happens and goes on a short run to get his blood flowing. By the time he gets back and puts on his nicest ballet clothes with his least disgusting sweatpants over them, he sort of feels awake enough to dance in front of people. But just to be safe, he drinks another coffee on his way to the studio.

It’s much bigger than anywhere Kevin has ever performed before and if the size isn’t enough to intimidate him, the interior definitely is. Designer furniture, high ceilings, chandeliers, a receptionist that isn’t just an instructor on her break. She directs Kevin to a smaller, plainer waiting room full of nervous-looking people in leotards like him. Most of them are about his age, with a few older teenagers and people in their late twenties. He gives them a small smile and picks a chair far away from the door.

It seems like an eternity before the directors come out to introduce themselves and start calling people in. There’s a unanimous look of sympathy at the first person, a boy on the younger side with blue painted fingernails and wide, frightened brown eyes. He waves halfheartedly and follows the director out of the room.

Kevin puts in his earbuds and tries to find music that will pump him up and calm him down at the same time. He settles on Beyoncé and starts considering what he needs to be ready to do in this audition. Of course, there’s the prepared solo performance, but they could throw any number of other things at him, and if he doesn’t know how to do them, he’s not getting a spot in the company.

They’re almost definitely going to ask him to do lifts with a female dancer, and that’s what Kevin’s really worried about. It’s not that he doesn’t have the strength for it, but lifts are a delicate thing that are best done with somebody you know and trust already. He’s going to be doing them with a stranger in a high-pressure environment where both of them are the most nervous they’ve ever been in their lives. There’s also the fact that he hasn’t done a lift in six months because his job doesn’t require it and he hasn’t had time to practice with anyone recently.

The assistant director, a tall woman with white blonde hair cut in a bob, comes out to call him in towards the end. There are only a few people left in the waiting room and Kevin wonders if there’s any pattern to the order they’re going in. Most talented to least talented? Least to most? Maybe just alphabetical?

The audition space is a huge theater that Kevin assumes is the same one the company performs in. His heart swells with something like affection and ravenous longing as he looks out over the red velvet chairs and gilded architecture. The two directors are sitting in the front row with clipboards and a dozen or so other people are scattered throughout the orchestra section. He sees Veronica sitting alone near the back and he could swear she smiles at him.

Kevin walks to center stage, takes a deep breath, and puts on his best Mormon missionary smile. “Hello, my name is Kevin Price from Harris Ballet School and for my solo performance, I’ll be doing a medley from Swan Lake.”

…

There must be a special class you have to take as a live theater director that teaches you how to have the best poker face in the world.

As Kevin does his final pirouette and throws his arms above his head, the few people in the rows erupt in applause, and Veronica even gives him a standing ovation, but the two directors just keep writing on their clipboards and eventually give him a small, meaningless smile to indicate that he needs to get off the stage.

The stage manager grabs his arm as he’s walking off and whispers, “I think they liked you.”

He stares at her dumbly, still in a fog of adrenaline and nerves. “Really?”

She nods. “The more writing the better. I’ve seen them not pick up a pen the whole time and those people never even get to stay for lifts. Speaking of which, stay here. If this girl isn’t terrible, you’ll do lifts with her.”

Kevin feels a wild spark of hope that he quickly smothers so he can use the brain space to analyze his partner. She’s short, no taller than 5’5, but more muscled than a lot of the female dancers. That means more weight, which the directors might not like, but if he can lift her, it will definitely earn him extra points. She introduces herself as Madeline Ford and announces her performance as some contemporary sounding song Kevin has never heard of. The music starts, fast paced and modern and is that a banjo in the background?

Kevin and the stage manager share a look. Everyone knows you don’t audition for anything with contemporary music. A lot of directors are less uptight these days, but with something this big, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Even with her choice of music, the directors seem to like her okay. She throws in some high-level moves and complicated gymnastics to impress them, including something that appears to be a more graceful version of a back handspring. Kevin claps for her when she finishes, earning him a startled look from Madeline and an elbow in the ribs from the stage manager. “What?” he says. “She was really good.”

The directors do call him back onstage after the applause has died down. He can feel Madeline sizing him up, gauging whether or not he’ll be good enough to keep her from losing the job of her dreams. “I’m Kevin,” he says, holding out a hand.

“Maddy,” she says, shaking it and smiling tightly.

“Have you done lifts in the past, Mr. Price?” the male director asks condescendingly. He must know that Kevin is a teacher, not a student or a part of a company.

Kevin’s face turns red. “Yes, sir. They are a required teaching at every ballet program in the country.”

“And where did you complete your training?” Kevin can tell from the look in his eyes that he already knows the answer.

“Brigham Young University, sir,” he says. He can barely even get the words out.

There’s a collective snicker around the room and Kevin doesn’t think he’s ever been more mortified. “Well then, I’m sure you’re very familiar with all forms of ballet, Mr. Price,” the man says.

Apparently, his only job is to embarrass the candidates until they’re near tears because he doesn’t talk again for the rest of the audition. The woman, who introduces herself as Angie, gives him and Maddy various lifts and positions to try and finally has them improvise a short dance to a simple piano song where all Kevin has to do is follow the rhythm and do the correct lifts when Angie tells him to. Maddy, he finds, is an excellent dancer by herself and with a partner. He has no trouble picking her up, and when he fumbles, she doesn’t allow him to pause and gets him back on track without missing a beat. Their performance is as near perfect as it could be.

“Hey, good job out there,” Kevin says as they’re walking back out to the waiting room to collect their things. “You really know what you’re doing.”

Maddy shrugs. “Thanks, you too. I just started dancing a few years ago as a hobby, and it turns out I’m actually pretty good.”

Kevin has to make the conscious decision not to let his jaw drop. “Wow, really? That’s incredible, you must be some sort of prodigy,” he says. He always thought he was a late starter because he danced when he was little, took an eight-year break, and then picked it up again casually when he was fifteen. He didn’t start dancing seriously until after his mission.

Maddy considers that for a moment. “Yeah, I guess I am,” she says, weirdly nonchalant for someone who apparently just learned that she’s a ballet genius. Kevin has always been hyper-aware of how good he is at everything all the time, and her indifference towards her own talent is honestly a little jarring. “Anyways, hopefully I’ll see you at rehearsal!” she says, slinging her gym back over her shoulder and giving him a thumbs up.

The second that Kevin is alone, the crushing weight that’s been sitting on his shoulders ever since Veronica told him about the audition is lifted off. He has at least a few days before he finds out if he got in or not, and until then, he’s going to relax. He calls Arnold and tells him and Nabalungi to come over to celebrate and texts Connor to ask what the best kind of cheap champagne is. He never thought he would be glad to have the roommate that he does, but he hasn’t gotten seriously drunk since Uganda, and he wouldn’t know the first thing about what to buy. He could call his work friends too but it seems inappropriate to celebrate having a good audition for the job they’ve all wanted since they were twelve so he decides against it.

He takes the long way home just to have more time to bask in the glow of knowing finally and without question that he is good enough. Even if he doesn’t get in, he’s good enough to get an audition and good enough to stay for lifts and good enough to dance with a prodigy. He’ll have to tell Connor about the audition because there’s no other way to explain how happy he is.

“Hello!” he calls extra loud, kicking the front door open. His hands are full with a paper bag of champagne and another one full of his, Arnold’s, and Nabalungi’s favorite foods with a box of Oreos thrown in just for Connor. “I have presents and good news.” Connor isn’t in the living room again and Kevin really hopes he’s not in the middle of another art crisis. He wants to tell someone else about his newfound peace of mind and he doesn’t think he can do it if Connor is as unhappy as he was last time. He knocks twice on the door to his bedroom and cracks it open when he doesn’t get a response.

Connor is laying down on his bed, asleep, and surrounded on all sides by crumpled up pieces of paper. His lamp is on and his pen is hanging loosely between his fingers, bleeding ink in a circular, black stain onto his sheets. Kevin slowly reaches down to take it out of his grasp and Connor’s eyebrows furrow and his mouth twists like he knows what Kevin’s doing, but can’t wake up enough to stop it. “It’s alright, just go back to sleep,” Kevin whispers. He notices that Connor has one piece of unwrinkled paper pressed flat to his chest with the drawing facing up.

Kevin tries, he really does try not to see what the drawing is of. If he hadn’t bent down to get the pen, he wouldn’t have been close enough to make out the details. If he hadn’t paused to see Connor’s face after he took it, the familiar angled cheekbones and over-styled hair looking back at him from the page wouldn’t have caught his eye. And if he hadn’t allowed himself to keep looking and take in every last stroke and shadow, he wouldn’t have realized that Connor drew him with his arms thrown up above his head and a brilliant, beaming smile on his face.

Kevin freezes. He knows if Connor wakes up now and sees him like this, he’ll never forgive him, but something about the drawing makes him stay crouched down and leaning dangerously close. 

He remembers Connor’s frightened expression when he suggested drawing him the other night. The charged silence and the unspoken question in the air: How can we claim to not care about each other if this is how we’re spending our nights? Sitting side by side in a dimly lit apartment straight out of an Oscar-winning movie talking about how we lost faith as teenagers and me offering to be your artistic inspiration. The answer lies in the paper in front of him, plain as day, but Kevin can’t bring himself to face it.

He goes back to the kitchen and dials Arnold’s number. “Hey buddy, sorry, I don’t think tonight is going to work. I’m just really tired and I want to go to bed early,” he says. It’s not a lie, just a simplified version of the truth.

“Aw, come on! We were already halfway there.”

“What about tomorrow? I’ll take both of you out to dinner to make up for it.” He doesn’t know why he offers that, he can’t really afford it.

There’s a pause and muffled voices as Arnold tells Naba the new plan. “We’re picking the restaurant,” he says.

“Sounds great.”

“Okay. Good night, best friend.”

Kevin watches Connor’s fist close around the paper on his chest through the open door. “Good night, buddy.”

…

He gets the call four days after the audition. It’s early in the morning, as all important phone calls in his life seem to be. He’d left his phone in the kitchen so the sharp, disproportionately cheerful ringing wakes him and Connor up. “Turn it off!” Connor groans from his room.

“I swear to God, Arnold,” Kevin mutters, stumbling out of his room with his eyes half open. He knocks over a stack of books and bangs his knee on the coffee table on his way.

The number isn’t in his contacts, but it’s a New York area code so he answers it anyway. Laura lives perpetually in the 1980s so it could be her trying to call him from a payphone. “Hello?” he says as professionally as possible given the circumstances.

“Mr. Price?”

Not Laura. “Yes, but you can call me Kevin,” he says out of habit.

“Right, well this is Veronica Richards. I’m sorry to disturb you at such an early hour, but I thought you would want this news right away.” Kevin’s heart jumps into his throat and he braces himself against the counter. “Congratulations, you’ve been accepted into the New York City Ballet Company as part of Corps de Ballet.”

Kevin closes his eyes and lets himself slide down the cool metal of the refrigerator until he’s sitting on the floor with his legs splayed out in front of him. He feels like he’s about to cry and he doesn’t really know why. “Thank you so much for informing me, I’m honored. I can’t wait to be a part of the team.” It’s a ridiculous thing to say, but this is a pretty ridiculous situation isn’t it?

“I think you have a very promising future, Mr. Price. Sorry, Kevin. I’ll let you get back to sleep, but I look forward to seeing you in the following weeks,” Veronica says. 

There’s a click and then Kevin is alone with the cold morning air and the rising sun and this feeling of accomplishment so great he thinks everyone in the building must be feeling it too. He buries his head in his hands and his smile is bright enough to light the whole city.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin and Connor have more issues than usual and Arnold and Nabalungi have News.

In the weeks following Veronica’s phone call, Kevin gets to learn firsthand how hard it is to keep a secret from someone you’re living with. He imagines this is what undercover agents feel like except Kevin might be even more paranoid because he’s a terrible liar and Connor can read people like books. Kevin acting like a nervous freak all the time is pretty normal so there’s a lot he can get away with, and it’s not like Connor wants to hear about his work day so he doesn’t have to answer any specific questions. The hard part is that he loves being a dancer again so much and he’s so happy all the time that it takes all of his will power not to talk Connor’s ear off the second he gets in the door about how crazy rehearsal was and how Jasmine spilled water on Max’s shirt and how they’re almost done learning the steps for their first performance.

Every day he walks home with swan lake in his earbuds and the events of the day replaying in his head and he has the same thought he had walking home from the audition: _I have to tell him tonight because he’s going to guess something’s up from how happy I am._ The problem is, Kevin has a habit of assuming that whatever he feels is also what everyone around him is feeling and he never allows himself to consider the possibility that Connor isn’t going to be in a good enough mood to receive that news.

He has the whole scene planned out. He would walk in the door and Connor would be reading or drawing or looking at his phone. They would exchange their usual vaguely insulting greetings and Kevin would just blurt it out without any prompting. Connor would be surprised but he’d brush it off with a joke and then the whole thing would be over.

What Kevin tends to forget when imagining this scenario is that Connor isn’t the same as he used to be. In the last few weeks, he’s been talking to Kevin less and less and when he does, it almost always leads to a fight. Connor finds fault in everything he does from the TV shows he watches to how he washes the dishes and Kevin knows that it’s bait and that by reacting, he’s giving Connor exactly what he wants, but he still falls for it every time and they end up screaming at each other until someone slams a door in defeat.

The alternative to the fighting, which is somehow worse, is Connor staying in his room, trying to draw and drinking himself into incoherence. Sometimes he comes out to get more liquor or paper and there’s so much pain in the way he walks and breathes and refuses to meet Kevin’s eye that Kevin almost can’t bear it. At least the fighting isn’t anything new. Sure, it’s more vicious and more frequent now, but from the moment they met, cruel words and quick rebuttals have been the one constant in their relationship. Seeing Connor too depressed to even make fun of his music taste gives Kevin the same feeling that most people get from seeing their parents cry. He’s perfectly aware of how little sense that makes, but Kevin’s given up on trying to analyze anything he feels about Connor.

On a particularly cold day in December, Kevin gets back from his morning run, teeth chattering and fingers stiff, only to realize that his apartment is barely warmer than the outdoors. Connor is standing outside his bedroom door, looking as puzzled as he is and searching for the source of the cold. Eventually his eyes land on the pair of open windows in the corner of the living room. “Why did you do that? It’s fucking fifteen degrees outside; how can you possibly be hot?” Connor says, slamming the windows shut with enough force to make them rattle in their frames.

“I didn’t open them, you did. What, do you think I did this just to sabotage you before I left?” Kevin says. He’s surprised and annoyed that Connor would start a fight this early in the morning and waste that much money while doing it. Usually he’s not even awake at this time so Kevin senses that something’s wrong.

Connor whirls around and looks at him with what looks like genuine confusion. “With you, Kevin, I really can’t rule out anything. Besides, I haven’t left my room in 14 hours, I think I’d know if I opened the goddamn windows in the middle of the night.”

It hits Kevin suddenly that Connor hasn’t slept. He’s wearing the same clothes as he was yesterday and his eye bags almost look like stage makeup they’re so dramatic. “Yeah, well, I pay the heating bill so I think I’m automatically the least likely culprit in this situation. If they were open all night, you probably just doubled how much it’s going to be this month,” Kevin says.

Connor rolls his eyes. “It can’t be that much higher than it already was with how hot you keep it in here. Your temperature preferences sure do match your geriatric personality.”

“If you contributed any money to anything at all in this apartment, maybe you would have a say in the temperature. Also did you just admit that it’s too hot for you in here? That’s pretty good motive to open the windows,” Kevin says.

“I didn’t say that, I just meant that you’re the one who’s freaking out about the temperature all the time.”

“Even if that was true, you’re the one who opened the windows and—”

Connor walks over and slams his hand down on the coffee table next to Kevin. “For the last time, I didn’t do shit. I know it’s easy to blame me because I don’t make the money around here, but let’s not forget that you didn’t exactly walk into this blind. Arnold told you I didn’t have a job and that I got evicted from my last apartment and I’m sure you bitched and moaned about it, but you still agreed to meet me. Then I told you the same thing, after being thirty minutes late, with a lot more vulgarity and bullying thrown in and you still were willing to take me in. And then – this is the part that really gets me – I showed up at your door at 4 o’clock in the morning, legless and soaking wet, and you gave me Disney pajamas and tea with honey in it. It’s been three months and not once have you even suggested that I move out, for all you complain about being the only one who pays the bills. Now who does that say more about, Kevin? You or me?”

Kevin tries to say something, but Connor cuts him off. “And just for the record, I don’t need you. Do you know how many men would pay to have me sleeping in their apartment every night? I could be living in some penthouse on 5th avenue making more than you ever will at your little ballet school, but instead I’m living with you, in Brooklyn, because I want to be an artist. Not a barista and not a fucking sugar baby, but an artist. I thought you did too.”

They’re inches apart, Connor desperately trying to get Kevin to look at him and Kevin’s eyes trained firmly on the floor. For all the arguments they’ve had, Kevin doesn’t think he’s ever seen Connor get this angry. He’s radiating contempt and everything from his trembling voice to his eyes, blue like the fire of the hottest stars and close enough to burn a hole in Kevin’s forehead, say that it’s directed at him. He thinks back to the night they told each other about their missions; back to Connor’s hand warm in his own and the barely spoken words, _“I don’t hate you, Kevin.”_

He drags his gaze up from the floor to meet Connor’s eyes. “You asked for honey,” he says.

Connor blinks and falls back just barely. “What?”

“You asked for honey in your tea, otherwise I wouldn’t have given it to you. And I didn’t open the fucking windows.”

Kevin grabs his gym bag and walks right back out the door.  
…

After giving it some thought, Kevin decides that it’s entirely possible he did open the windows. According to a YouTube video he watched about sleep talking, it often leads to sleep walking which could then lead to completing actions in your sleep, like cooking and cleaning and opening windows. Also, he got up at 5 a.m. so he could’ve just opened them without thinking and then forgot about it.

It’s equally possible that Connor did it as a result of extreme sleep deprivation or that he just opened them with the intention of starting a fight. Kevin was sure the last option was the right one at the beginning of the argument, but now it seems like the least likely choice.

“And then he said, ‘With you, Kevin, I really can’t rule out anything.’ Can you believe that? He thinks I’m the one who’s trying to sabotage him,” he says. He’s walking to work at a breakneck pace and talking on the phone with Nabalungi because Arnold didn’t answer and he cannot be alone with his thoughts right now.

Nabalungi sighs. “To be honest, Kevin, you two are so devastatingly similar, I’m surprised you haven’t killed each other or gotten married yet,” she says, not unlike a tired mother trying to mediate her children’s petty disagreements. Kevin silently files that away to analyze at a later time. “Are you two still going to be able to make it to dinner tonight?”

 _Fuck._ Kevin forgot about that. “Uh, yeah, we’ll be there. But do you see what I’m saying? There’s something wrong with him, Naba. I know he’s Connor, but he’s not usually this bad. He didn’t sleep last night for God’s sake. When was the last time you knew him to not be dead asleep at 7 in the morning?”

“Kev, listen, I know you’re worried about him, but I know Connor probably better than anyone else in the world and let me tell you, he’s going to be fine. He just needs to draw something he’s proud of and everything will fall into place after that.”

He considers that. “Okay. You’re probably right,” he says. “I just want him to go back to normal.”

She laughs. “At this point, I’m surprised you want him at all.”

Kevin winces and it isn’t until they’re done talking and he’s walking into work that he realizes it’s because she sounds just like Connor.  
…

His directors are named Nathaniel and Angie and both of them are so suited to their names that it’s become sort of a running joke in the company. Nathaniel mostly because he refuses to be called anything other than his full name and he spends most of his time looking down his nose at any of the dancers that didn’t graduate from a dance school in New York or Paris. Angie is just because she’s cool and pretty and it’s unanimously agreed that all Angies are always both of those things.

They’re just finishing up blocking for Act 3 and everyone in the company is bone tired. At Nathaniel’s request, they’ve all been working out for 2 hours every morning and then coming in to work for another 8 hours of intense physical stress. Some people run after work too, but Kevin hasn’t reached that level of crazy yet.

“I know Nathaniel said today was a full run through, but let’s just do Act 4 tomorrow. You guys deserve a break. Go home, talk to your boyfriend, take a nap,” Angie says. Unlike Nathaniel, she used to be a dancer and it shows when she makes calls like this. Kevin’s never seen a group of people look so relieved. “Oh, one more thing before I let you go. Opening night is in three weeks so now is the time to reserve seats for your friends and family. We can get Great Aunt Edna and Uncle Bill in at some point but I’m going to have to cap you at three spots for opening night. Do with them what you want.”

Kevin’s heart sinks. It’s not that he doesn’t have anyone to invite, Arnold and Naba wouldn’t miss his first performance for the world, but he’s been having this fantasy for a long time and up until pretty recently, his parents were included in it. It’s not even that he wants them to be there, he just always assumed they would be.

Angie is standing by the stage door with a clipboard and gradually, everyone gives her three names, collects their tickets, and files out of the theater. Kevin is the last one in line and he feels weirdly nervous. “Ah, I see they saved the best for last,” Angie says, giving him a warm smile. “Who are you bringing, kid?”

“I need two tickets for Arnold and Nabalungi Hatimbi-Cunningham.”

She writes that down and looks back up expectantly. “Who else?”

There’s no reason why Kevin should be blushing, but that’s never stopped him before, has it? “Um, that’s it. I don’t have anyone else.”

Angie gives him a pitying look. “Handsome guy like you, no girlfriend? Boyfriend?” Kevin’s eyebrows shoot up and he starts stammering like an idiot. She laughs and says, “I’m going to put you down for an extra ticket. You tell me when you have the name.” She hands him the tickets, winks at him, and walks out the door before he has time to react.

He puts two of the tickets in an envelope to give to Arnold and Naba later tonight and shoves the third one in his jacket pocket, out of sight and out of mind.  
…

Kevin spends the entire walk home trying to figure out how he’s going to sit next to Connor for an entire meal without causing a scene or offending any of Arnold and Nabalungi’s more normal friends. They’ve been trying to have this dinner party for weeks now to give their friends some “news” that apparently can only be received at some overpriced restaurant in SoHo. Kevin and Connor, being the unorganized train wrecks that they are, have been keeping it from happening so Kevin figures they have to go no matter how painful it’s going to be.

He doesn’t have any texts from Connor, which isn’t exactly surprising, but it means that he has no idea what to expect. He takes extra care turning his key in the lock to make it as quiet as possible and opens the door slowly, ready for an ambush. “Connor?” he says tentatively.

When he gets no reply, Kevin opens the door the rest of the way and sees that Connor isn’t in the apartment. All the doors are open, all the windows are closed, and the only explanation for his departure is a sticky-note above the coat rack that says, “meet you there,” the underlying message being: I’m not riding the subway with you and you don’t deserve a text from me to let you know that.

Kevin puts on a nice shirt and the same jacket he wore to work and takes a cab to the restaurant. It’s a Friday night and the whole area is crowded with people his age and younger going out clubbing. He wonders if this is where Connor goes when he disappears on weekend nights with his “friends.”

The restaurant is classy, almost intimidatingly so. Kevin realizes the second he walks in the door that he hasn’t had to dress up for a meal in a long time and he’s worried he didn’t do it right. Some of the men are in tuxedos and almost all of them are wearing a full suit. _Why couldn’t we just do this at a diner?_ Kevin thinks to himself as the host gives him a disdainful once over. 

“Hatimbi party?” he says, apparently getting this information from Kevin’s outfit. Kevin nods and he shows him to his table where he’s relieved to find that the rest of the party is as underdressed as he is with the exception of Connor, who is dressed to the nines in a sleek maroon suit.

“Kevin! Glad you could make it, buddy,” Arnold says, gesturing to a seat between him and Connor.

Kevin smiles tightly and sits down. “Of course. How could I miss out on whatever important news it is that you’re sharing with us tonight?”

Arnold beams. “It’s big news, you won’t regret it. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited I almost told you like four times but Naba said—”

“Arnold, honey, do you think you could at least wait until everyone’s here?” Nabalungi is glowing too. “I’m really glad you two are here,” she says, reaching out to touch his and Connor’s hands. “Especially you, Connor. Not that I don’t love you both equally, but Kevin talks to me all the time and I feel like I never get to see you. I miss you.”

Connor doesn’t react other than a small nod and it makes Nabalungi’s smile waver. She retracts her hand and starts talking about the menu while trying not to look hurt.  Kevin elbows Connor in the ribs. “Look what you did, asshole,” he whispers. “I know you’re mad at me, but you don’t have to take it out on everyone else.” Connor shoves him off and starts talking to the guy sitting on his other side.

The whole meal passes like that, with Connor charming the pants off of every one of Arnold and Naba’s work friends and pointedly not talking to Kevin. He’s being so thoroughly ignored that he can give Arnold and Naba their tickets and talk to them about his new job without worrying that Connor will overhear. Every once in a while, an uproarious laugh comes from the other side of the table and Kevin feels a misplaced twinge of jealousy that other people are hearing the dry, quick-witted jokes that are usually only for him. At one point, he’s pretty sure Connor’s talking about him because he looks over and they’re all laughing like school children caught telling secrets. Connor gives him a cold, impersonal smile as if to say, _“See what I can do without you?”_

Kevin feels like he’s going to be sick, but he stays seated for Arnold and Nabalungi. He cannot wait for this announcement to be over with.

They go through dinner and dessert and Connor and Kevin are the only people that don’t order coffee. Connor’s audience grows more and more captive with each passing course and then finally, _finally_ Nabalungi stands up and clinks her fork against her wine glass.

“Thank you all for coming tonight. I know you’re all very busy so your willingness to take time out of your schedule for me and Arnold means a lot. As I’m sure you know by now, we have some news and as our closest friends, we thought you should be the first people we tell.” She pauses and at first it seems like it’s for effect, but then Kevin realizes she’s trying not to cry. “We’re having a baby!” 

Arnold flings his arms her and they’re hugging and crying and everyone in the restaurant starts clapping. Even Kevin is smiling. “Congratulations, you’re going to be a dad!” he says, pulling Arnold in for a hug.

“And you’re going to be an uncle!” Arnold says. Kevin’s heart melts.

He turns around to celebrate with Connor because surely something this wonderful has to overcome whatever it is that’s going on between them. Five confused faces and the flash of a maroon blazer flying out the door are all that’s there. “Where’s he going?” Kevin asks. His answers range from blank stares to one half-hearted shrug.

He quickly congratulates Nabalungi and apologizes to her and Arnold for leaving in such a rush. By way of explanation, he points to the door and says, “I have to go get him.”

Kevin rushes out of the restaurant and down the street in the direction he saw Connor go in. He doesn’t realize he’s running until people start telling him to watch where he’s going and he ignores them. Don’t they understand? Don’t they know that Connor is alone and upset and surrounded by a city of bad decisions just waiting to be made? Kevin wants to scream at them for worrying about manners at a time like this. _Pay attention, you idiots_ , he wants to say. _The sidewalk is going to swallow him up when no one’s looking and it will be all your fault._ Something wild and deep in his bones tells Kevin that if he doesn’t find him right now, he might never find him again. His lungs burn and his legs feel like they might give out if he turns one more corner and Connor’s not there.

Some would call it luck, intuition or even a higher power that brings Kevin to the dimly lit little avenue where Connor stands suspended in the fluorescent glow of a streetlight, looking for all the world like a fallen angel. There’s no one else on the street and Kevin truly believes that if he’d gotten there ten seconds later, he would’ve been gone.

“You didn’t have to follow me,” Connor says, still facing away from him.

“Yes I did.” Kevin approaches him cautiously, the way one would approach a wounded tiger. “I had to make sure you were okay.”

Connor exhales a deeply controlled breath and Kevin realizes he’s crying. It knocks the wind out of him. “I’m not. I don’t think I have been in a while.”

Kevin nods and says, “Are you mad at Nabalungi?”

“No, god no. It’s just that…” He closes his eyes and his lip trembles. “They’re having a _baby_ , Kevin. Did you know that they’re both younger than me? I can’t even sell a drawing and my younger friends are having a baby. At least you have a job, even if it’s a shitty one. You have other skills besides dance; you’re good with kids. I don’t have any of that. The only thing I have is my art and it’s getting to the point where I don’t know if I even have that anymore.” The last sentence comes out as a series of choked, horrible sobs and for the first time since they met, Kevin sees Connor break. 

He opens his arms and Connor walks into them like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He buries his face in Kevin’s shoulder and holds onto him the way a drowning man grips a life preserver. “You have so, so much more than that,” Kevin says. “You have friends that care about you. I don’t claim to know anything about your other friends, but Arnold and Naba love you like nothing I’ve ever seen. You have an apartment with heating, running water, and more books than you could ever want. You have a pushover roommate who’s letting you live with him for free just because, as hard as it is to admit it, he likes having you around.” Kevin swears he feels Connor smile into his jacket. “You have talent. Believe me, I know better than anyone how hard it is to get by on just that, but you’re going to go places. Not everyone moves at the same pace so success is going to come at different times for different people. It took me five years longer than the average dancer to get into a company and even now—“ 

Kevin bites his tongue so hard he tastes blood. He can feel Connor tense up in his grasp and pull away, almost reluctantly. “I knew you were hiding something,” he says, voice thick with crying. He doesn’t even sound angry, just numb, and that makes Kevin feel even worse. “You always talk about work, even when you’ve had a bad day and you stopped.” 

There’s a black, toxic feeling spreading from Kevin’s stomach to the rest of his body. “Connor, please listen to me, I didn’t mean to lie to you. I just didn’t want you to feel worse than you already did.” 

Connor tips his head back and looks up at the towering buildings above. “Don’t waste your breath, Kev,” he says. 

He turns and walks off into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god this last scene was SO hard to write. hope you liked it, I promise this fic will get less angsty at some point. probably not next chapter, but at some point. I’m hoping to have the next chapter up in the next two weeks so stay tuned!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin Price and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad two weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy this took a long time to write, but it’s 9000 words which I just realized is literally 1/3 of the word count so. I really hope y’all like it.
> 
> also I just wanted to say that I know I don’t really reply to comments but I do appreciate them and they’re a lot of the reason I keep writing this fic so thank you for being so supportive!!

He wakes up the day after the dinner party, on Arnold and Nabalungi’s couch, sure that when he gets back to his apartment, Connor will be there. When he does go home, he finds no signs that anyone has been there at all and Arnold and Naba have to physically wrestle the phone away from him. After that, it takes an hour of persuasion from Nabalungi, a lot of mindless reassurance from Arnold, and round the clock Xanax to keep Kevin from filing a missing person’s report.

In some capacity, he understands why they don’t want him to. Connor probably doesn’t want to be found and calling the police could end in more trouble for him. “He’ll come home when he feels ready,” Nabalungi says, but even she doesn’t sound convinced. Something about this time is different than all the other times Connor has pulled reckless stunts and come out unscathed. For one, he’s never been gone for more than three days and it’s been almost a week.

At some point, Kevin starts saving the anxiety meds for work and drinking at night. Not heavily, not to the point where he doesn’t remember things the next day, but enough to where he wishes he didn’t. Usually, that means calling people he hasn’t spoken to in years or coming up with elaborate scenarios in which something terrible happens to Connor and the police can’t find anyone to contact because they didn’t tell anyone he was missing. It’s a waking nightmare, but it beats the actual nightmares because in those, he doesn’t know that it’s fake.

Most nights, Kevin calls Connor. He always waits until he’s drunk enough to convince himself he’ll answer, which just makes it hurt even worse when he doesn’t. He doesn’t usually leave a voicemail because Connor doesn’t listen to them when he’s not in the middle of an off-grid disappearance so he doubts this would be an exception. One night, though, he’s out of alcohol and pills and he refuses to smoke anything for fear of ruining his lungs so the desperate hope that a voicemail could make Connor come home is the only vice he has.

He listens to the familiar, taunting sound of a phone not being picked up and then to Connor’s voicemail greeting: “Hi, this is Connor McKinley. I’m not answering my phone right now, but I’ll try to call you back at some point. I don’t listen to voicemails, but you can leave one anyway if you want, I guess.” Kevin used to make fun of it relentlessly, telling Connor he sounded like a fourteen-year-old emo boy. Now he usually hangs up before it can play to avoid the memory.

“Hi, Connor. It’s Kevin. You probably already knew that,” he says. He wishes he was drunk so he could blame how pathetic he sounds on something. “I know you have no reason to listen to me. If I were you, I would’ve deleted my number by now. I just wanted to say I’m sorry and tell you that if you want to disappear from your life here and start over somewhere new, that’s fine. Arnold and Naba won’t let me call the cops so nobody is going to look for you.”

He considers hanging up there. That’s what the old Kevin Price would do. To protect his pride, he would swallow his feelings and let Connor work out what he wants for himself. But he isn’t that version of himself anymore and much more than he cares about his pride, he wants to know that Connor is okay. “And I also wanted to ask you not to leave. I know how unfair that is, coming from me, but things are falling apart here without you. I’m falling apart. I can’t sleep because of how worried I am and when I do, I have nightmares where the police show up at the door to tell me that something terrible has happened to you and it’s all my fault. I promise if you just come back, I’ll never keep anything from you again and I’ll never complain about the bills and you can make fun of me all you want and I’ll never get angry. Just please come home, Connor. Come home.” He sounds like a desperate, blubbering idiot and he doesn’t care. He presses end call and turns his phone all the way off.

…

The next day, Kevin goes to the liquor store after work and buys enough vodka and beer to get five people pretty drunk. It doesn’t make sense, but if getting hammered is what keeps him from leaving Connor embarrassing voicemails, then that’s what he’s going to do. It’s not that he’s upset he didn’t get an answer. He wasn’t really expecting one. What he’s upset about is that he’s still hoping that Connor listened to it.

He goes through his customary routine of two drinks with dinner, which is a handful of almonds and a frozen banana today. One of the perks of being too wracked with guilt to eat anything heavier than fruit is that he never has to buy food anymore. He’s losing weight which would have bothered him a few weeks ago but now seems insignificant compared to everything else wrong in his life. Nathaniel hasn’t noticed yet or he would probably throw a fit and set Kevin on an all-pasta diet. Angie seems to have noticed something’s different, but she hasn’t said anything yet.

Usually, after dinner means reading and drinking and reading and drinking off and on until the words don’t make sense and he remembers his situation, at which point he picks up the phone and calls Connor. Tonight is different because there’s a very irrational part of his brain that has been wanting to call Connor all day so it’s more of a race to see if he can knock himself out before that part takes over and he follows through on it. Reading is a distraction so he just sits on a vent by the window and watches cars go by as he downs shot after shot. Straight vodka is disgusting, but juice and soda water take too long and after a few swigs he becomes numb to it.

As a way to pass the time, he tries imagining where everyone in every cab that passes down below is going. At first, it works. That one’s coming home from a Broadway show, that one’s going to a nightclub. He starts to lose his grip on his consciousness and all the cars are suddenly carrying Connor and they’re always taking him somewhere far away from here. Kevin eyes his phone, which is across the room on the counter. “Just get it over with,” it seems to say to him. “You know you’re going to do it eventually.” He supposes the phone is right. He’s going to do it at some point so why not right now?

He dials the number and listens to it ring, completely unsure of what he’s going to do when it gets to the voicemail greeting. Leaving a message sounds like the kind of thing Sober Kevin is going to be angry about tomorrow, but not leaving one wouldn’t be any fun.

Kevin is just starting to consider what he would say when he realizes the phone has stopped ringing, but there’s no prerecorded Connor. On some level, he understands that this means someone has answered the phone, but that can’t be right. If Connor wanted to talk to him, he would’ve answered one of the first twelve times Kevin called him. Still, he can hear what sounds like breathing coming from the other end and there’s not a soul that knows Connor’s phone password but him. His heart is in his throat. He’s worried if he says something Connor will hang up, but he also wants to talk to him so bad it hurts his chest.

“Are you there?” Kevin whispers. He hears a sharp intake of breath and nearly falls off the vent. “I don’t— I mean I’m not— like I’m kind of drunk right now so it’s probably not the best time for me to be talking to you.” He waits for Connor to hang up, but there’s still just silence and breathing. Everything about this phone call feels fragile and volatile. “Did you listen to my voicemail?” Nothing. “Are you going to say anything?” He doesn’t answer, which is an answer in itself.

Kevin gets the feeling that any attempt to apologize or ask where he is would result in Connor hanging up so he takes the opposite route. “Fine. Then I guess we can just sit here in silence until one of us talks because I’m not having a one-way conversation with you,” he says. He knows, beyond any doubt, that Connor will stay on the line because he never backs down from a challenge, especially if it means beating Kevin.

They stay like that, listening to each other breathe until the cars down below start to thin out and Kevin can feel his eyelids getting heavy. He could just be drunk and delusional, but he likes to think that in a way, they both needed this. Before the night of the dinner party, they hadn’t spent more than twelve hours apart since Connor moved in, and some part of them needed to be reassured that the other person didn’t cease to exist as soon as they were separated for more than a day. Probably nothing Kevin says can change Connor’s mind if he’s set on not coming back, but at least now he knows that he’s still there and that he hasn’t forgotten about him.

…

Kevin wakes up the next morning with what he can confidently say is the worst hangover he’s ever had. He drank things in Uganda that probably aren’t even legal in the U.S and even the headaches he got from that don’t hold a candle to this. He feels like someone is repeatedly jamming an icepick into his skull, but along with the typical hangover symptoms, he can also barely breathe and his whole body aches like he has a fever. He feels so terrible that he even considers calling in sick to work but picturing the smug look on Nathaniel’s face forces him out of bed. Enough coffee should tone down the migraine and he’s pretty sure he has an inhaler lying around somewhere.

Getting to work is almost as bad as actually being there. Every time Kevin thinks he might be feeling a little bit better, a taxi honks right next to him or someone screams into their phone as he walks by and his headache comes roaring back.

He’s not about to tell his directors that he got blackout drunk in an attempt to stop himself from making a stupid decision, but he also can’t exactly hide how bad he looks so he decides to just fake obliviousness. “Yeah, I have no idea. I just woke up feeling like crap, but I’m still okay to dance for now,” he says to Angie, not sure if he’s telling the truth about the last part.

He gets through the first half of the morning, which is luckily mostly the directors working with the soloists and the rest of the company doing warm-up exercises. Kevin takes twice as long to do them as everyone else and skips the most challenging ones, but Angie either doesn’t notice or pretends not to. As the morning progresses, he feels worse and worse and takes more and more pain pills. They run through Act 1 and twice while he’s offstage, he has to run to the bathroom just to be in silence for a few minutes to calm his headache.

Angie must’ve talked to Nathaniel because he doesn’t say anything until Kevin starts missing cues, at which point he tells him that if he can’t function at the level of the rest of the company, he should just go home. Kevin was actually considering leaving at lunch, but now he’s going to make a point to stay and excel even if it kills him.

He might have collapsed from sheer exhaustion if not for the fifteen other people in the company who clearly know what it’s like to be hungover during rehearsal. Maddy, the girl who he auditioned with, approaches him shortly after Nathaniel threatened him and says, “We’ll go at the pace you set. He can’t exactly send us all home without having to cancel the whole run through.” She winks at him and gives him a reassuring smile before joining the rest of the dancers in their starting positions. They’re all looking between him and Maddy and snickering, but right now, Kevin couldn’t care less. 

Sure enough, half of the backup dancers go through Act 2 three steps behind and deliberately move in front of Kevin when he starts to falter even more. The other half looks understandably annoyed at them, but they all think of Maddy as somewhat of an authority since she’s better than all of them so they don’t complain. It’s obvious to the directors, of course, what they’re doing, but Maddy was right when she assumed that they wouldn’t send them home. Nathaniel looks about ready to burst a vein in his forehead when Angie calls a lunch break.

Kevin follows his castmates out of the theater and quietly leaves the group, muttering something about a meeting. It’s not a complete lie, he is meeting Arnold for lunch, which he’s both grateful for and dreading. He wants to see his friend and it’s a good excuse not to eat with the annoyed half of the company, but he just wants to take a nap.

He gets to the restaurant before Arnold and spends five minutes with his eyes closed and his head in his hands, willing his body to stop being so dramatic and learn how to handle a few shots of vodka.

Arnold shows up fashionably late, as usual, dressed in a very nice looking suit that he definitely only owns because his job requires it. “Hey buddy, sorry I’m late. I got stuck in traffic and—” He looks Kevin in the face and does a double take. “Woah. You look awful. You could’ve told me you were sick and we could’ve rescheduled this.”

Kevin sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “I’m not sick, it’s just a hangover. I drank a lot, but I think I must be forgetting about some of it because this is… it’s… do you remember that one day in Uganda after that birthday party when I threw up in the bushes? Yeah, this is worse than that.”

Arnold makes a low whistling sound and sits down across from him. “Yikes. Did you seriously go into work?” he asks, gawking at his Work Sweats. Kevin nods. “That’s dedication. When me and Naba are hungover, we just both call in sick and lounge around the house taking care of each other.”

Something about the way he phrases it reminds Kevin of the last time he was actually sick when Connor did all his work for him and then came home to take his temperature and sit by him while he slept. The memory adds a new layer of pain to the area around his heart that feels an awful lot like homesickness. “Yeah, I wish I could do that. Unfortunately, my boss is already out to get me and I don’t have a Nabalungi.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

They order their drinks, soda for Arnold and coffee for Kevin. “Are you sure you don’t want some water? They say that staying hydrated can help with hangovers,” Arnold says.

“Oh come on. If you were going to start scolding me for my caffeine addiction, you should’ve done it in Uganda when there was still time to stop it.”

“I did. You didn’t listen to me.” He sounds slightly disappointed which makes Kevin feel like a major dick. He can never tell when he’s going to make Arnold sad and when he does, it’s one of the worst feelings in the world.

Arnold adopts the same tone when the waiter comes back to take their lunch orders and Kevin doesn’t order anything. “Buddy, I know you don’t feel good, but you need to eat. Especially with your job. You’re going to ruin your body if you keep drinking and exercising at the rate you are without sleeping and eating enough to balance it out.” That sounds like a sentence right out of a _New York Times_ article about alcoholic athletes and suddenly, Kevin gets the feeling this lunch might have been a little bit more strategic than Arnold originally let on.

“Arnold, I don’t have time for an intervention right now.”

“Yes, you do. I will make you time. I don’t care who your boss is, I will personally call him and tell him that I held you hostage for however much time you need accounted for.”

Kevin doubts Nathaniel is going to give one single fuck about the reason for his absence, especially after this morning, but he can’t stand the thought of disappointing Arnold again today. “Alright, shoot,” he says.

Arnold clears his throat and shoves his hands in his pockets the way he does when he’s nervous. “I didn’t tell Nabalungi I was doing this. I’m not hiding it from her, I just didn’t want her to get involved because she’s already upset about Connor. She sees him as more of a brother than a friend and nothing is more important to her than his happiness. She told me that she thinks he can take care of himself wherever he is, as long as he’s happy.” Kevin doesn’t think he agrees with that, but it’s not worth contradicting him right now. “The way she sees it, he wasn’t happy here, so in a bittersweet way, this is for the best.”

A kind of profound betrayal hits Kevin like the recoil of a shotgun. “How can you say that? He’s fucking missing, Arnold. You know, the word they use on the news when they’re talking about a dead person whose body hasn’t been found yet?” Just because Kevin knows that Connor isn’t dead doesn’t mean Arnold and Nabalungi get to go around assuming he’s okay.

An elderly woman with a fur shawl turns around to glare at them and Arnold gives her his best apology face. “Hey, buddy, calm down. I didn’t say I agreed with her, but I do think she has a point about Connor not being happy here. You know better than anyone how much he was struggling. I think it’s about time you start trying to get over him.”

Kevin resents the idea that not only can Arnold tell how upset he is about Connor, but he also thinks it’s any of his business to tell him how to deal with it. “What are you talking about? I don’t need to get over him, we weren’t even friends. I just want to know that he’s okay because I like to think I have basic human decency.” It’s a pathetic excuse and they both know it.

Arnold’s disappointment has changed into pity which is just as bad, but now it’s Kevin who gets to feel hurt. “Basic human decency would be calling once. I’ve seen people handle divorces better than you’re handling this,” Arnold says gently.

Kevin’s head is throbbing and he almost wishes he would pass out so he wouldn’t have to continue this conversation anymore. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Maybe not, but Nabalungi definitely does. She’s said from the beginning that you two were going to wreck each other beyond repair. At first, I didn’t believe her. I guess I either underestimated Connor or I don’t know you as well as I thought I did because I really didn’t think that he was going to be the thing to knock you off your podium.”

It’s almost aggressive how sharp the memory is in Kevin’s mind. He sees Connor curled up on a dusty, pea green couch, dim light filtering in through the kitchen as if it were a movie he’d watched last night. He can smell chamomile tea and masculine soap better than he can smell the food in this restaurant, and above all the chatter of the surrounding tables, he hears Connor saying, _“I don’t do anything the regular way.”_

“What did you say?” Kevin says.

Arnold looks embarrassed. “Sorry, that was dramatic. I just meant that I didn’t see Connor ever leaving this much of an impact on you,” he says.

“I did.” Kevin doesn’t even process the words until they’re already out of his mouth. “I think somewhere deep down, I always knew.”

Arnold nods as if this makes any sense at all. “I think you need to get a new roommate. Maybe one who’s a little bit less…” He looks up at the ceiling, checking to see if there are any words written up there that could begin to describe Connor McKinley. “Just a bit less.”

Kevin nods back as if he would in a million years consider that. “I have to go back to work,” he says evenly.

“Yeah. Me too.” They hug because they always do and it would feel wrong if they didn’t. “Naba and I are leaving tonight to visit Mafala in Uganda and we’ll be gone for a week so we won’t be able to check on you. Remember what I said about sleeping and eating. And coffee is not a meal, no matter how much sugar you put in it.” 

“I’ve never put sugar in my coffee.”

“Just take care of yourself, okay?” Arnold says.

Kevin manages a weak smile. “I’ll try my best.”

…

In the end, the directors send him home. When he walks through the door after lunch, they seem like they don’t know whether to be irritated that he’s late or surprised that he showed up at all. It’s obvious that he’s still not in any position to be dancing, but they let him stay until the most physically strenuous part of the show.

It’s the part where Kevin has to lift Maddy above his head and carry her across the stage like that, which they both know isn’t going to happen today. Angie doesn’t even let him finish stretching before she tells him, “If you want to put your own body through this that’s fine, but I’m not going to let you drop her and risk losing the best background pair we’ve got.” Maddy reaches up to give Kevin a high five. “Next season needs you two. After this show is Romeo and Juliet, and Justin and Anya are leaving for London after Swan Lake.” Justin and Anya are principal dancers who have starred in the last three shows the company has put on. They’re basically Gods to everyone else in company and Kevin has a hard time comprehending what Angie is suggesting.

A very flustered Maddy is trying unsuccessfully to thank her without dying of excitement. “Ma’am, I mean Angie, thank you for—”

“Don’t thank me yet, I’m not the one who makes final casting decisions,” Angie says. She jerks her head in the direction of Nathaniel and Kevin would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a tinge of disappointment. “You two should probably just leave before he notices you’re not participating. I’ll take the blame, tell him I forced you to go and you went kicking and screaming.”

They’re out the door almost before she can finish the sentence, Kevin yelling a quick “Thanks, Angie!” over his shoulder.

“So, Romeo, what do you say we hit up a bar and start treating that hangover,” Maddy says. Kevin literally cannot think of anything worse than being in a crowded room full of strangers that all smell like alcohol and he tells Maddy as much. “Okay, then we go to your place and order pizza and watch movies. I’m not going back to my sad, empty apartment after getting that kind of news.”

He knows that her apartment is neither sad nor empty because she lives with her French actor boyfriend, Oscar, but she clearly just wants to hang out with him and he’s okay with that. “I get to pick the movie,” he says.

Maddy grins. “Only if it’s a good movie. And I get to pick the pizza.”

…

Apparently, Captain America is not what Maddy considers to be a “good movie.” After she orders her disgraceful pineapple pizza and criticizes his liquor cabinet at length, she sits down on the floor and starts meticulously sorting through every movie Kevin owns. “So what I’m getting from this is that you are secretly a time-traveling child,” she says, referring to his collection of Disney and 80s movies.

“I’ve been discovered,” Kevin deadpans. He knows he sounds rude, but he doesn’t know how to explain that he’s not irritated with her in the slightest, it’s just that he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a week, his roommate is missing, and every part of his body hurts. If Connor were here, he would tell Kevin to grow up and quit whining while getting him water and painkillers, but he’s not so Kevin just stays quiet.

Something across the room snags Maddy’s attention. She walks over to a stack of papers and folders by the door to Connor’s room and plucks a DVD case off the top. “Finally, something worth watching,” she says, holding it up for Kevin to see. He’s struck by a very complicated emotion that presents itself on his face as something between wariness and sadness. “What, you don’t like Mamma Mia? Are you even human?”

“Never seen it.”

Maddy scoffs. “Then why do you own it on DVD? In this day and age, people only buy physical copies of things if they’re emotionally attached to them.”

Kevin was hoping to avoid this topic of conversation tonight, but any lie he made up would sound suspicious. “It’s my roommate’s favorite movie,” he says reluctantly.

Maddy’s eyes widen and she immediately resurveys the apartment, presumably looking for signs of another person. “You were just going to let me find out you had a roommate when they walked out of their bedroom and gave me a stroke, huh?”

Kevin laughs despite himself at the mental image of Connor and Maddy meeting that way. “No, he’s not here right now.”

“When is he going to get here? Does he have a night job or something?” she says. There’s a bizarre edge to her voice, but Kevin’s paranoid enough that he might just be imagining it. He’s really sick of people getting mad at him for excluding information that they never took the time to ask about.

“Uh, well, that’s the thing. He’s not going to get here at all, or at least I don’t think he is. He doesn’t exactly live here right now,” he says.

“What the fuck are you talking about, is he your roommate or not?”

Kevin flinches, not because of her tone, but because he honestly doesn’t know the answer to that question. “He’s missing. We had an argument a little over a week ago and no one has seen him since. At least, no one that I know.”

All the annoyance drains out of Maddy’s face and voice. “Oh. Dude, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.” Kevin doesn’t have a kind response to that so he just stays quiet. “Have you called the police?”

“No. Our best friends are married and they say I shouldn’t,” he says. Maddy raises her eyebrows and Kevin remembers why he doesn’t talk about them and Connor in front of his work friends.

“Have you talked to his other friends? Coworkers? I get why you don’t want the cops involved, but shouldn’t you at least be looking for him?”

“It’s more complicated than that. First of all, I don’t know his friends because we didn’t really get along when he was here and he doesn’t have any coworkers because he’s an artist. Also, everyone seems to think he’ll come back on his own if he wants to and we should just leave him be,” Kevin says.

Maddy laughs, a loud bark that makes him jump. “An artist? No wonder you don’t want to look for him, it must’ve been a nightmare trying to get him to pay his bills. If he was your friend that would be different, but if you guys hated each other, I’d say this is good riddance.”

Kevin thinks it must be nice to live life in the uncomplicated way that Maddy describes it. Someone goes missing, so you call the police. You need help paying the bills, so you get a roommate with a steady job. You and your roommate fight constantly, so you don’t miss him when he’s gone. “We didn’t hate each other. We just didn’t get along,” he says. “There’s a difference, I promise.”

Maddy looks unconvinced. “If you say so. Less talking, more movie watching, it’s time for you to experience the magic of ABBA music.” She reaches down to put the disc in and springs back to the couch like she’s in danger of missing something.

Turns out, the one thing Kevin and Connor agree on completely is this movie. Kevin was planning on falling asleep within the first ten minutes, but he likes the first song so he stays awake through that, and when he realizes Meryl Streep is in it, he’s hooked. “But how can she have three dads? Why don’t they just take a paternity test,” he says.

“Don’t be so boring. Sophie doesn’t need a paternity test because she loves all three of them equally, and besides, there’s no drama in that.”

“I guess. I hope Harry’s the real one though.”

They get to a part where all three dads are on their sailboat, singing to Sophie about her mom. “This is my favorite song in the movie,” Maddy says dreamily, leaning into Kevin.

Kevin wrinkles his nose. “Really? Not ‘Dancing Queen’ or the one about money?”

She shakes her head and her hair tickles Kevin’s chin. “Nope. I like love songs. Mamma Mia is all about romance, after all, and this is the most romantic song in it.”

“I don’t know, to me it seems like it’s about a bunch of dramatic rich people singing 70s pop songs on an island. I don’t like love stories so if it was all about romance, I would be asleep right now,” he says. Sophie and her dads are jumping off a cliff into the ocean now and Kevin wonders, quite unimaginatively, how they got there.

“Not a rom-com guy, huh? I would’ve pegged you as a total hopeless romantic,” Maddy says.

He can’t tell if she’s joking or not. “No, I’ve always been pretty pragmatic about everything but dance and religion. I definitely wouldn’t have guessed that you of all people would be into that lovey-dovey stuff.”

Maddy turns to look him in the eye. She’s searching for something on his face, a sign or a deeper meaning that isn’t there. “I guess people can be unpredictable,” she says, and then she’s leaning in and tilting her head and Kevin is standing up.

“What are you doing?” he says. It comes out high pitched and accusatory.

She touches her fingers to her lips he’s the one who surprised her. “I was kissing you. I thought you wanted me to.”

Kevin gapes at her. He doesn’t think he’s done anything tonight that would make her think that, but no one has wanted to kiss him in a while so he can’t be sure. “It doesn’t matter whether I wanted you to or not, you have a boyfriend!”

Maddy looks offended that he would even mention such a thing. “Based on what you told me tonight, so do you. Stop trying to act like the moral authority, you don’t care about my boyfriend. You just don’t want to cheat on yours.”

“I think you should go,” Kevin says icily. He stares out the window and lets his eyes go out of focus on the blinds of the apartment across the street until the door slams shut and Maddy is gone.

He almost cries. Tears fill his eyes as he sits on the vent, hugging his knees to his chest, but he doesn’t let them spill over. He hasn’t cried sad tears in longer than he can remember and it just seems wrong that this be the thing that pushes him over the edge. He didn’t cry when his mission went south and he didn’t cry when his parents stopped paying his tuition after they found out he was a dance major and he didn’t cry when he got fired and couldn’t pay his bills. He didn’t even cry when his own mother told him he was going to hell, and he’s sure as fuck not going to cry now.

He tries to call Arnold, but it goes straight to voicemail and Kevin remembers him and Naba’s trip. He probably shouldn’t bother them anyway. Being Kevin’s best friends during a long-term breakdown is a full-time job and they both deserve a break. All of his friends in the company have probably already heard about what happened from Maddy and they’ll take her side so he has nobody to call.

He opens the window and closes his eyes as he takes a deep breath of frigid air. His lungs protest the action and he hears a low wheezing sound when he exhales. He remembers Connor telling him once that he had asthma and wonders if this is what that feels like.

He knows then, breathing in icy shards of twenty-degree air and looking down over an abandoned city, that this is the loneliest he’s ever been.

…

Kevin’s sleep that night is patchy at best and nonexistent at worst. He keeps barely drifting off only to be woken up by a coughing fit or that strange tight feeling in his chest. At 4:30 he gives up and walks down the street to an all-night diner. He’s not hungry and it’s not like it will improve whatever this fucked up hangover is doing to him, but he wants to be in the company of people who are in just bad of shape as he is and a diner at 4:30 am is the place to find them.

Sure enough, the only people there besides him are two college kids with books spread out in front of them, a half-asleep businessman drinking coffee, and a group of disheveled looking people in party clothes eating pancakes. He sits down at a booth in the corner and a waitress who looks like Dolly Parton comes over to take his order. “What can I get ya,” she says with the accent of a Brooklyn smoker.

“Black coffee please,” Kevin replies and the waitress nods and walks off to get it. The smell of the pancakes wafts over to where he’s sitting and makes his stomach lurch. Based on the amount that he’s eaten in the last three days, that’s probably because his stomach is so empty that it’s making him feel sick. It’s not worth testing that theory right now though because if he’s wrong and eating makes him sicker, he won’t be able to go to work and then Maddy will think that it’s because of her. He also can’t look any higher than the table in front of him because the fluorescent lights make his head spin. “Excuse me,” he says when the waitress comes back with his coffee. “Do you know how long hangovers are supposed to last?”

She looks unphased. “I don’t know, a day? Why, how long have you had one?”

“About a day. It’s not just normal hangover stuff though. It hurts to breathe and I think I might have a fever.”

The waitress raises one eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like a hangover. I think you got something real. You can still have a Bloody Mary if you want though,” she says.

That’s not the answer Kevin wanted to hear. He wants just one person to tell him that sometimes they also develop asthma for a day after a really crazy night out or that aches and chills are a perfectly normal part of a bad hangover. “How do you know if you’re dying?” he asks.

She considers that. “I don’t know, I’ve never done it before. You should probably go to the hospital, but I’m guessing if you’re asking me for advice, you can’t afford to do that.” Kevin shakes his head. “Ah, I’m sorry kid. You’ll be alright. Just drink your coffee and go to work and everything will sort itself out.” 

He nods absently. “Thanks, I’ll do that.”

…

It’s clear the moment Kevin walks into the theater that Maddy told the whole company what happened. Or, more likely, she told them her own twisted version of the events in which Kevin is an evil asshole and she’s just an innocent girl with a crush.

The house lights are off, but the overhead stage lights and the crystal chandelier that hangs above the mezzanine are on. It casts the dancers in an uneven, stark white light that makes them look like one united, unstoppable force.

Dramatic lighting or not, Kevin is not going to let himself be intimidated by people that were his friends less than twenty-four hours ago. He walks right up to them and says, “Hey guys, what’s up?”

No one says anything. Maddy is giving him the kind of glare that’s usually reserved for child murderers in movies. Kevin shrugs and sets his stuff down in one of the orchestra seats. There’s only so much someone can lose in the span of two weeks before other people’s opinions stop having value and the only thing that matters is getting through the day.

Angie can tell right away that something’s off. As Nathaniel makes announcements and reads off their schedule for the day, she looks the company over one by one trying to find the source of the problem until her eyes land on Kevin. He’s standing away from the rest of the group, leaning against the side of the stage with his arms crossed. Angie cocks her head a bit to the side and her eyebrows come together slightly. He stares back at her, expressionless.

“We’re going from back to front today. It’ll help you get a better sense of the show,” Nathaniel says. Everyone excluding Kevin and Angie groans. “Hey, before you all start with that, know that this was not my idea. Angie wanted to do it.” She snaps out of her staring contest with Kevin to nod at the company. “Don’t worry about transitions, just run through the scenes from the end of Act 4 through the beginning of Act 3 and then we’ll go from there.”

The dancers take their places for the beginning of the last scene, yawning and grumbling predictably. Maddy and her close friends scowl at him from across the stage and he looks over their heads in response.

Dancing feels like what Kevin imagines running a marathon while breathing through a coffee straw feels like. He’s panting halfway into the first scene and every time he jumps, he’s not one-hundred percent sure he’s going to land on his feet. The entire theater becomes a blur of white light and fast moving bodies, and not the good kind of blur. When you’re first learning to dance like a professional, it’s ruthless and terrifying and you can never catch your breath, but it feels so good. This is nothing like that. Kevin feels like he’s being shaken up in a jar.

Most of Act 3 is partner dancing. Before Nathaniel even calls the break between the acts, Maddy is walking down to the front row to ask Angie for a new partner. It’s not all bullshit either, she tells her that Kevin is too sick to do lifts and that she’s worried he’ll drop her, which could very well happen. It’s just not why she wants a new partner. “Why today? He was sick yesterday and you didn’t say anything until I sent you home,” he overhears Angie say. Maddy shrugs. “We can’t afford to let you guys have another day off. If he drops you, we pay the hospital bills and you don’t have to work for a few weeks.”

Maddy looks livid. She stalks over to Kevin in long, fast strides with her fists clenched. “Let’s get this over with,” she grumbles. He’s dreading this as much as she is, especially since if he actually does drop her, she’ll have proved Angie wrong without even trying to.

It’s bad right from the start. Kevin’s weak and Maddy’s angry and neither of them are in any condition to be doing this with each other. Everything they do is forceful and disjointed because he’s keeping them a step behind and she’s trying to make up for it by doing everything twice as fast as it should be.

Kevin spends the ten seconds before their first lift mustering up the strength to pick her up and even then, he barely does it. “Pull yourself together, your arms were shaking,” Maddy whispers when she’s back on the ground. He doesn’t have the energy to tell her that he can’t help it. He gets shakier for every lift they do and on the last one, he puts her down a full five seconds too early because if he didn’t, he would’ve dropped her.

After the scene, she yanks on his arm to pull him down to her level. “Are you out of your goddamn mind? You can’t just stop dancing whenever you feel like it, I don’t care how sick you are. Are you trying to make us look terrible?”

He can barely hear her over the deafeningly loud voice in his head telling him that if he doesn’t sit down right now, something bad is going to happen. “I shouldn’t be here,” he says, finally admitting it to himself as well as Maddy. Her face looks smudged like someone wiped their thumb over it and blurred out the details.

“No, you shouldn’t. Go tell Angie you’re leaving and the next time I see you, you better be done with whatever this is.”

Kevin walks onto the stage, looks Angie in the eye, and collapses.

…

Consciousness becomes a spectrum where recognition comes in small bursts. Red light behind his eyelids, hands lifting him onto something soft, a siren. Distantly, a man’s voice shouts something urgent. At one point he wakes up enough to feel motion sick, but not enough to figure out why. He never feels anything for longer than a few seconds before the dark, heavy numbness pulls him back under. It’s a dreamless sleep, with no guilty conscience or coughing fits and Kevin couldn’t resist it if he tried.

…

He smells the hospital before he’s even fully awake. It’s not a familiar smell, but it’s so sterile and specific, a hospital is the only thing that comes to mind. Slowly, memories of going to work and falling on the stage followed by vague sounds and images that add up to an ambulance ride come back to him. He opens his eyes and sees that he’s in a hospital bed with a blanket over him, in a room by himself. It’s dark outside which means it’s either been a few hours or more than a day.

There’s a button on the arm of his bed that says, “PUSH FOR ASSISTANCE.” He figures he should probably tell someone that he’s awake so he presses it and a nurse rushes in seconds later. She’s young, about his age, and her nametag tells him her name is Daria.

“Mr. Price, you’re awake,” she says, sounding surprised.

“It’s Kevin. How long was I out?”

“Not that long, about eight hours. We actually thought you’d stay unconscious for longer.” There’s a machine on the wall that looks like a cross between a phone and an alarm system and Daria punches numbers into it as she answers him. “I’m going to call Dr. Jacobs. He wants to talk to you about why you passed out.”

She walks out of the room and is soon replaced by a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair wearing scrubs and a lab coat. “Hello, Mr. Price, I’m Dr. Jacobs. How are you feeling?” he asks.

Kevin realizes he hasn’t actually thought about how he’s feeling since he woke up because there’s barely been anything to think about. His headache is still there, but much better, and his breathing issues are down to a slight wheeze. All the aches and pains are gone and he feels rested for the first time in days. “You can call me Kevin and I definitely feel better than I did earlier today,” he says.

Dr. Jacobs laughs, loud and sincere. Kevin likes him instantly. “I would hope so. You were feeling about as bad as it gets when you got here. Do you know why you passed out?”

Kevin hesitates. He does, on some level, but he doesn’t know how to explain that he had a bad hangover that turned into asthma and a fever and being tired all the time. “No.”

The doctor picks up a clipboard sitting on the table by the bed. “Well, there’s a number of reasons, actually. You were severely dehydrated, mildly anemic, sleep deprived, and you have pneumonia. Did you have the flu earlier this year?” he asks. Kevin nods. “It probably came from that. Sometimes the virus gets into the lungs and re-infects the body. Your case is fairly advanced so I’m willing to bet you’ve had it for a while.”

Kevin hears the implication. He shouldn’t have put his body under stress by going to work and this incident could have been very damaging to his health and his career. He’s gotten the lecture from friends and professors and now he’s going to get it from a doctor. “I’ve treated dancers before, Kevin,” Dr. Jacobs says. “You all think that the world is going to end if everyone else gets one more day of practice than you or, God forbid if anyone thinks you’re weak enough to let sickness keep you from performing. You also get paid a barely livable salary, certainly not enough to afford a hospital visit. I understand why you didn’t come in.”

A wave of relief washes over Kevin. “Thank you. Nobody ever gets that,” he says and Dr. Jacobs gives him a sad smile. “Did you tell my friends what happened?”

“We called your emergency contact, listed as Arnold Hatimbi-Cunningham. He’s out of the country right now, but he wants you to call him when you feel up to it. You do have a visitor though. I don’t know who he is because he changes his story every time we tell him he can’t see you. First, he was your roommate, then your friend, then your boyfriend, and then your husband. He couldn’t prove anything so we couldn’t let him in without your permission. I’m surprised you couldn’t hear him yelling at the receptionist.”

Kevin’s heart stops beating. “Did he tell you his name?” he asks, voice quiet and hopeful. 

“Yeah, Connor something.”

“He can come in,” Kevin says quickly.

“I’ll tell the nurse.”

He sits in bed perfectly still, barely even breathing for fear of missing the sound of familiar footsteps. Waiting feels like an eternity and he could swear hours go by if not for the clock in his room telling him undeniably that it’s only been five minutes. Still, that’s a long time to walk from one side of the hospital floor to the other. They’re probably just understaffed, but all he can think about is the possibility that Connor left. What if he thought that the reason they wouldn’t let him in is that Kevin didn’t want to see him? What if he just got tired of waiting? Kevin needs to call him right now and he can’t find his phone anywhere. A feeling of overwhelming panic rises up in his throat and he can feel himself gradually slipping back into a soft-edged half sleep.

The door opens with a hesitant click and Daria walks in followed by the only person in the world who Kevin could bear to see right now. The rest of the room melts away and he and Connor are looking at each other like they’re each other’s own most impossible dreams come to life. In that moment, Kevin knows that they’ve had the same kind of two weeks. “You don’t have to stay, Daria,” he says, eyes still locked on Connor’s. She takes the hint and leaves the room silently.

Neither of them says anything for a long time. There are a million directions they could take this conversation in and every one of them is going to be painful. Kevin could get angry, Connor could get angry, or they could both pretend like nothing was wrong the last time they saw each other, but none of it would be the truth. “I didn’t think you would come back,” Kevin says, testing the waters.

Guilt doesn’t look good on Connor. He doesn’t usually show emotion, he just puts the emotion on his face that he wants other people to see. Even in the weeks before he left, when he was barely a shell of his former self, everything he let Kevin see was a carefully curated version of what was really there. But there’s no hiding regret and for once, they’re on level ground.

“I fucked up really bad, Kev,” Connor says. _Kev._ “And I know you feel bad about not telling me about the job. I know because nobody calls that many times unless it’s to apologize for something, but you don’t need to. None of this is your fault.”

Kevin is speechless. It’s an apology, but still unconventional enough that he knows that Connor means it. It’s so much more than he ever expected. “Okay.” A small smile is growing on his face. “I’m not mad at you.”

Connor returns the smile. “I know,” he says softly. “I know you’re not.”

…

They talk for hours. When you live with someone, you don’t realize how much of their daily life you absorb until there’s nothing there to take in. Kevin wants to know right away where Connor was and what he was doing and Connor is just as curious about what happened to him.

“At first I stayed with some old friends from college,” Connor says. “I guess ‘friends’ is a strong word. We were pretty close when we were nineteen, but I hadn’t talked to them in years. They took me in until I started getting on their nerves and then I left and ended up couch surfing from acquaintance to acquaintance. I would drink their liquor and eat their food, fall asleep, and leave the next day—what?”

Kevin is trying not to laugh and it’s not working. “Nothing, nothing. That’s just so you.”

Connor rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. He has been for a while now. “Is that a compliment?” he asks.

“It can be.”

There’s a beat of silence. It’s not awkward, just careful. “Alright, well anyway, I was staying with this couple I met in San Francisco when Arnold called me this morning and let a message saying you were in the hospital. I got here as fast as I could, but they wouldn’t let me see you because I’m not family.”

Kevin doesn’t miss how he leaves out the part about him lying about his identity, but he doesn’t want to push it. “So I was told.” He hesitates, not sure if he should ask, but too curious not to. “Why did you come? Why didn’t you just ignore the call the way you have every other time?”

Connor looks confused. “I couldn’t just let you be here by yourself. The last time you got sick, I thought I was going to have to take you to the hospital. When I found out you were actually in one, I was crazy worried and then when they wouldn’t let me in, that just freaked me out way more. I thought…” He swallows thickly. “I thought you were in the ICU. I thought there was a chance you could die and that’s why they weren’t letting anyone in.”

Kevin feels a red-hot burst of anger at the nurses and Dr. Jacobs for not telling him what happened. The thought of Connor sitting out in the waiting room for hours, alone and completely clueless, makes him sick to his stomach. “I promise I’m going to be okay,” he says, a yawn cutting off the last word.

“God, I feel that. I feel like I haven’t slept in forever,” Connor says, closing his eyes and stretching his legs out in front of him. “Goodnight. Hopefully, you can go home tomorrow.”

“You’re sleeping here?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Kevin blinks at him incredulously. “You can’t sleep in that chair. You’ll hate yourself for it tomorrow when your whole neck is one big knot.” The corner of Connor’s mouth turns up, but he doesn’t budge, stubborn as ever. “Come here.” Kevin moves over and pats the bed next to him. Connor raises an eyebrow suggestively and he’s able to keep himself from blushing through willpower alone. “Don’t look at me like that, it’ll be more comfortable.”

There’s no uncertainty this time. He lays down next to Kevin, turning off the lamp as he does. It’s probably not that much more comfortable because the bed is almost upright and it’s an extremely tight fit, but neither of them complains. They’re both starting to drift off when Kevin says, almost subconsciously, “Are you going to leave again after this?”

For a while, Connor doesn’t say anything, but Kevin knows he’s not asleep. “Do you want me to?”

“No.”

“Then no. I’m not.” His head falls onto Kevin’s shoulder and Kevin exhales slowly. 

His last thought before he falls asleep is how strange it is to be so grateful for Connor McKinley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay the boys are finally happy!! I’ll be honest, i was getting kinda sad about Connor just writing this fic so I’m assuming you all were too. also fun fact: you know how every fic writer bases their multi-chaptered fics on specifc scenes in the middle of the plot that they envision in their head? one of mine was the hospital scene. the other one i haven’t written yet. 
> 
> I don’t really have a good idea of when the next chapter will be up because school is unpredictable, but hopefully in the next two weeks?


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